This poem is about choosing to let the past things go, whatever one has done in the past, whether it be past mistakes, people, events, you can choose to clean up after yourself, let it go and move on from it and you can choose to surround yourself with better decisions, better people and better incidents. 

 

I took out the garbage 
clean, clean, clean,
cleaning up my messes, 
dream, dream, dream, 
dreaming in the past tense, 

the garbage bag tore
midway on front porch
the cut up photos,
the empty lipstick, 
the broken vase, 
tears soaked tissues, 
scraps of the past, 

suddenly everything facing 
me all at once

I sink to knees,
it stinks, I think
bit by bit, i gather everything again
pushing it into the torn garbage bag

and as I plopped the bag into the bin,
it didn't stink anymore
and it didn't matter that 
I was still dreaming of the past
because
I could finally smell the lavenders 
that I had planted in my garden

can't wait for the garbage truck tomorrow
I thought
let me dream of the lavender
I wished