The Exchange: A List of Things That Went Missing That I Still Wonder About

This is post 53 of 54 in the series “The Exchange”

The Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

The Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

A List of Things That Went Missing That I Still Wonder About by Chima “Naira” Ikoro

The forks in my parents house that my dad swears we must have thrown away.
The see-thru Chinese restaurant carry-out containers my mom said to save that I definitely threw away.
The lid of a bowl that I tried every single lid in the cupboard on and couldn’t find a match for, threw that away too.
The $20 bill I got for finding someone’s lost dog.
1. I went to spend it immediately and didn’t even have it anymore.
All of the school supplies I begged my mom to buy from Office Max in September that never made it to winter break.
The left or right foot of every ankle sock I’ve ever owned, without fail.
The cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo, remember that?
1. Also what the hell even is a cornucopia?
The $1.3 billion dollars of cocaine found on a cargo ship that was owned by J.P. Morgan, remember that?
1. Where do you even store twenty tons of coke?
All the toys my cat really likes;
1. Why would you hide something you love from yourself?
The “girls” we were talking about with the hashtag “bring back our girls.” Remember that?
1. April made ten years since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria.
  1. Ninety of them are still missing.
Every lip gloss I’ve never finished;
1. How could you lose something you love so carelessly?
Hostages that probably wouldn’t survive being carpet bombed, obviously.
1. Maybe their families didn’t specify that they be recovered in one piece but I thought that was implied.
  1. You can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs from a drone.
    1. Maybe peace wasn’t ever an option on the ballot in the first place.
A child under rubble who was still alive when they stopped being searched for.
The alleged “terrorists” under that hospital,
1. and that church,
2. and that school,
3. and that entire city,
  1. and the one next to it,
  2. and the other one, too.
The tens of thousands of Black women and children who’s beige files collect dust while memories of them outlive the system’s urgency.
The link that makes all these things connected, or else this poem would just be clickbait.
The reason why anybody wants anything so much, it is worth the life of a person you can afford to not care about, because you need an upgrade.
The forks that were in the sink all along when it was my turn to do the dishes.
The container I regret throwing away because I understand how much everything costs now, and how stupid it is to treat something like it’s disposable just because someone told you it is, but it really shouldn’t be.
The lid of a bowl that I could never find a match for because it wasn’t mine to begin with.
Money I got for just being a decent person, because decency is an anomaly.
The difference between the left and the right:
1. I can’t tell which sock is missing
2. I don’t know if there will ever be a person on this ballot that will do the right thing.
The school supplies I wasted while girls from the same country as me dissolved into history.
This concept of peace, and the light I had in my eyes the first time I went to a protest.
Every pair of earrings I loved.
1. One day you take them off when you’re drunk, and you never see them again.
My insurance, which expired at the end of last month, when I turned 26.
1. Turns out this country can’t afford healthcare because there will always be something worth more than our lives, or anyone’s, for that matter.