Gemotions

The musty scent of old paper and mothballs filled Maya's nostrils as she heaved another box out of the attic. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of sunlight slicing through the gloom. Her mother had asked her to sort through her "memories." Memories? More like a monument to what, exactly?

She flipped open the lid and began pulling out stacks of construction paper, stapled worksheets, and handwritten essays. Her fingers brushed against a grade seven science project on the life cycle of a frog, complete with construction-paper lily pads and a lopsided clay tadpole. A wave of heat washed over her.

She picked up a particularly atrocious poem she'd written in eighth grade about a lonely tree. Its awkward rhymes and clunky metaphors made her cheeks burn. Why? Why would her mother keep *this*?

“Mom, what is *this*?” she called down the stairs, her voice tight, the poem clutched in her hand.