Luggage was the right word because he could only lug it, inelegantly drag it across the floor like a corpse; like a thing he wanted rid of. Which it was. If he lifted it to his back it would press down into the cup of his spine like weighted wings. If angels existed the heft of their wings would suffocate them as they tried to take flight. He’d heard that somewhere, that it would be like a mid-air crucifixion. He imagined the crumpling of white feathers as he dragged the bag a little further out of the door.
Kate
There’s a limit you know – you can’t take all that with you?
What would you know about what I can take and what I can’t? It’s my luggage and if I want to pack all my stuff in it, then it should be my problem to deal with. You’re not the boss of me.
sigh. when will you ever learn – you make things so hard for yourself?
My eyes opened slowly and heavily. I pushed the sheets toward my feet. Then I just lay there, willing this lifeless body to move but lacking the motivation or urgency required to realise that dream. Finally, on the third alarm, I forced my warm legs out from the security of my blankets into the dauntingly cold morning air. I rugged myself up and braced myself to take on the frozen waste that must lie outside this bedroom. In an unfamiliar place with no plan, I felt like someone’s discarded luggage. Left in the winter of my loneliness, I waited.
I can’t wait until the day that I am a frequent flyer. Checking in luggage, boarding the plane. I want Alexander McQueens black ribcage luggage. It’s intricate.
it comes in all sizes and you can carry stuff in it
m
luggage leather coffee brown, caramel clothes and hair curl belt for my waist, but the holes run out before it’s tight, so maybe I’ll dig a new one. Or get a new belt.
I couldn’t carry him and his disorders with me. I had fought to make my way to New York all my life and now was the time to reap the rewards I’d waited for. I couldn’t care less that my heart screamed I was in love, I’d shut down many other screams in my head, what was one more?
My luggage is stored under the plane. I have no idea what goes on down there, but I assume my bags are bumped around with everyone else’s. I just hope my stuff doesn’t fall out.
Pag gusto kong pumunta sa ibang bansa, dyan ako sasakay. Para may thrill. XD
Tine
Luggage. That’s all there really is, y’know? You can’t walk around life without at least one small bag of it. Your own personal weight. Maybe it isn’t the weight of the world, maybe some days you exaggerate how much it weighs you down…but other days you do all you can to hide it. You tuck it so far out of your mind that you think, for once… its really gone. Of course it isn’t, it never will be. Its permanent and it can only grow larger. Heavier.
Pshh, this old thing? What are you talking about? I’ve had it for so long I can barely remember that its there. Its like a scar so faded people don’t believe you had it, but you know. You subconsciously trace your fingers along its edges all day long. Reliving the incident in your subconscious.
People will believe you. They can’t judge the weight, they are lacking perspective that isn’t their own. Everybody else’ luggage looks the same. You can’t pass it over and have them hold it. Its not a physical thing like a book or a charm hung around your neck. Its tied to your heart and it pulls it down through your stomach if you let it.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice on that matter.
There will be days when you wake up and you truly believe that it is gone. That you’re fucking free. Finally. Finally you can sit up and hold a conversation like everybody else. You can pretend that nothing bothers you.
I know, Its eating away at your soul. It will be till the day you die.
If you think about, its probably one of the worst afflictions a person can have. Then again, everyone has it.
Some days you think it might just tear you in half. It might just plummet right through you destroying everything in its path. Who will you be then? When you disappear within it? This thing, so simple, that you lug around everywhere with you.
Can you let it go? Can you break free from your own personal jail cell. A constant reminder that maybe you -aren’t- good enough, strong enough, pretty enough. Maybe, you never will be. Maybe…probably.
Let me take a look at your luggage. Let me try to judge it. Let me lift what you lift for a moment. Its only fair trade if you hold mine while I hold yours. Isn’t it?
Lili
the luggage i carry is heavy
but they say never look back
so i’ll live for today, stay clean today
because that’s all i have
lauren
She coughed on the dusty that flew off her suitcase as she plopped it on the floor. How long had it been since she’d last flown on an airplane? Ten years at least. She was just a kid then. But now the time for looking at pretty postcards and ogling the luggage for sale in Kohls was over. Greta would not only see the world, but be a part of it at last. She turned up the volume on iTunes and skipped through the house rocking out to Kelly Clarkson’s song “Breakaway.”
She slowly started the engine to the rusted old red ’74 Chevy. It gave up a fight, but rumbled into gear.
She reversed and pulled out of the driveway, and began down the street.
Passing neighbors, joggers, and children, She smiled.
She knew they were completely oblivious to anyone’s life but their own.
They then reached the end of the street, and the boy in the passenger seat said “Where to anyway?”
A small smile arose at the edges of her light pink chapped lips.
“Nowhere, yet. Anywhere really. Anywhere but here.”
And, they drove. For hours, for miles.
The music sped up, slowed, sped up again.
The only thing that held them together was the fear of being alone and the single suitcase they shared.
She looked around her house and her life and tried to convince herself that, if necessary, she could do well without any of the material objects she’d spend her life assembling. Memories matter more than materials, and she doesn’t really need all of those books she’d promise that she’d reread at some point, the clothes which were never as good of a deal as convinced herself standing in the checkout counter of department stores.
In reality, it was easy to tell from her daily habits that this wasn’t the case. Going to the store required a purse that was probably designed as a messenger bag, overnight trips involved at least a backpack’s contents, and any voyage longer than two days meant at least two types of luggage that was mostly filled with “just in case” activities, and “This might be the trip when I find that I really do like wearing heels, so I should bring a few different pairs” supplies.
I packed all of my suitcases for our trip. So many countries squeezed into such a small amount of time, and right after Pappa’s death. How could I possibly know what I would need? I remember that I simply never unpacked. No therapy. Just go go go. Never the chance to recover.
Cassandra Anandappa
I took a trip to Venezuela last week and the damn airline lost my luggage. It took nearly two weeks to recover the bags and i went in the same rages for that period of time, the locals thought of me as a homeless wretch and i thought of myself as the lowest of the low for having presented myself in such a manor.
Jeannifer
pack everything you’ll need. sneakers, scarves and jeans. 10 days, 10 nights. don’t forget the condoms. you probably won’t use them but it’s the thought that counts.
I don’t like luggage. When I see it, it always signals to me that someone is leaving. Never coming, always leaving. Always packing their lives up in a neat package and walking away from me.
Even walking by the luggage section in a department store leaves me cold.
Lara
you take it on holidays and put your clothing and stuff in them. they go down the ramps to get to airplane. sometimes they get stuck and leave the bag behind and you get to the place you going and then your like oh no they forgot it!
acra
They packed their luggage onto the plane. Gilbert, unfortunately, did not know that it had to go through the baggage claim first. How they got past the baggage claim was a mystery. Perhaps the security guards were too busy invading people’s bathrooms, you know IN THE BATHROOM. You know, like in the Great Mighty Poo’s lair.
Upon seeing the house – with the sky-blue painting chipped, the door on its hinges and the windows cracked – Lydia’s knees wobbled.
“It’s okay,” She told herself. She straightened and breathed deeply. She needed to do this.
She stepped inside and was greeted by the smell of woodchips and the sounds of scurrying rats. The stove was rusted. A bedframe was rotting in the corner.
“I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m okay.” she whispered repeatedly. For her to be free of her emotional baggage, she needed to confront this. To come here.
It wasn’t until she saw the cracks above the stove wall that her knees gave and the tears began to flow.
T.
he grabbed his luggage and started to make his way toward me, but i couldn’t even wait any longer, so i ran for the first time since the doctor told me to stop running and threw my arms around him and he dropped that stupid luggage to spin me around. and i knew we were being the cliche couple in the airport, but i haven’t felt at home since i left the track, and this might be just a little bit better.
This was it. Word leather handle of the luggage didn’t feel heavy in my hand anymore; if anything it pulled me toward the day. I know I must have looked scattered and distant in my husband’s drunken eyes, fleeing out that door. Leaving bitter words to eat at him, I left, the bruises throbbing, my head still damp with blood.
My whole summer consists of lugging my clothes around in luggage. We go here, there, everywhere and I love it. But sometimes, just sometimes I wish I could stay and get to know the place I live in, you know?
Daniela
it’s midnight and i try to feel.
next door, the sweet elderly couple are watching reality TV,
clicking their tongues while laughing along.
i think about your smile and your hair as it falls on my shoulder, like a love story,
in the way a person feels but doesn’t understand
art. compassion. a falling flower.
i want to stop swallowing poison. instead i
feed it to you in spoonfuls; anything to empty the bottle.
it trickles through my teeth and you lap it up.
my wet chin burns.
the couple next door are silent now.
it is a losing battle: i will never be good enough.
and like this: i dream enough for the both of us.
in other words: i’d rather spend my life asleep.
basically: i will not spend it with you.
the sun across wooden floorboards. a hand rooting through my sternum. bare feet tucked into the couch cushions.
you will always be you
but then,
i will always be me.
Sometimes there are little pieces of people strewn about in parts of the city with special memories locked into leather lockboxes. Sometimes people carry heavy things which may wither away; it happens because materialism does not like to follow us to the grave. There are lemon-yellow duffels which hold soft things that young women need to make themselves feel above standard and important. And beautiful. They bring their duffels and their monogrammed Louis and their Balenciaga motorcycle vintage collector’s edition filled with subservient objects to help them become objectified. Yet, women object to objectification.
The luggage weighed more than I had expected. Though it wasn’t much; as I had figured my mother had packed my bag again. Only then I began to worry if I had forgotten something and there I sat for an entire half an hour while others passed curiously throughout the airport. I slunk back into my seat after searching, finally satisfied. She had left out the toothpaste.
Baggage. You are old, heavy and oversized fee mongering luggage that I want to check and the gate and never claim.
mmcgrath
Luggage reminds me of travel. It’s a way to escape. You throw all your things into a couple of bags and just…take off. Then, for a while, you just live out of your bag. It also shows just how few possessions we REALLY need, when it comes down to it. The fact that we can fit all our necessities into just a few bags? We, as humans, value our belongings entirely too much.
Kat
words that carry me through all places throughout the world. some are light as a feather, others I struggle to drag behind me, scraping the linoleum floor, creating white scratches as if a cat had had an epileptic seizure in the bathroom.
Audrey
It wasn’t as if she was afraid of someone taking her luggage, oh no, she was afraid of the zipper. The zipper on the pocket of her bag with her razors had become loose while on the flight, and it was ready to slip. She needed to grab her bag before someone moved it aside or tried to help her with it. And just as she reached out to snatch it, someone pushed it out of their way. The zipper slid, her box fell, the metal hit the floor with a ping.
Items in which you put your personal belongings such as clothes, toiletries, etc. for traveling.
Nina
There are people everywhere, everywhere, milling about or striding hurriedly by or even, like him, standing back and scanning the crowd. There are so many coats, mostly brown, what is it with people and brown coats? His is forest green, but to be fair, it had been a gift. If he’d picked out his own he probably would have grabbed the first one he saw, and it probably would have been brown, too.
The baggage claim spits out a new batch of bags and almost immediately he spots the one he’s looking for. He grabs it and stands back and waits again, eager now, hand clenched hard around the handle
luggage is awesome. one time, all of my luggage dropped out of my suitcase and i missed my flight. HAHAH just kidding. that would = waist of money/time. not so cool now is it? i love writing under pressure…. oops off topic. forgot what i was gonna write. running out of time. bye
Inbar
They met while she was on R&R, he showed her around town and soon enough he thought she was the one. but little did he know, that was her specialty. last he heard she still travelling the world, breaking hearts. and she never once lost her luggage
I’m a neat freak
a packing machine
folding clean sheets, stack, repeat
shirts are purposely creased along the seams
until the buttons line with the lining
collars are perfectly perpendicular to the pockets
all placed loveingly in the suitcase
just in case
we ever go anywhere
Dressed with luggage at my feet standing outside felt so good I think I would still be there if it wasn’t for the cat watching me. Something about cats disturbs me, they exude an aura of feral pursuit even when sitting in the sun, watching. It was time to leave, distract myself with other places and movement again. But what was I leaving behind, was this also an escape?
Luggage was the right word because he could only lug it, inelegantly drag it across the floor like a corpse; like a thing he wanted rid of. Which it was. If he lifted it to his back it would press down into the cup of his spine like weighted wings. If angels existed the heft of their wings would suffocate them as they tried to take flight. He’d heard that somewhere, that it would be like a mid-air crucifixion. He imagined the crumpling of white feathers as he dragged the bag a little further out of the door.
There’s a limit you know – you can’t take all that with you?
What would you know about what I can take and what I can’t? It’s my luggage and if I want to pack all my stuff in it, then it should be my problem to deal with. You’re not the boss of me.
sigh. when will you ever learn – you make things so hard for yourself?
My eyes opened slowly and heavily. I pushed the sheets toward my feet. Then I just lay there, willing this lifeless body to move but lacking the motivation or urgency required to realise that dream. Finally, on the third alarm, I forced my warm legs out from the security of my blankets into the dauntingly cold morning air. I rugged myself up and braced myself to take on the frozen waste that must lie outside this bedroom. In an unfamiliar place with no plan, I felt like someone’s discarded luggage. Left in the winter of my loneliness, I waited.
I can’t wait until the day that I am a frequent flyer. Checking in luggage, boarding the plane. I want Alexander McQueens black ribcage luggage. It’s intricate.
it comes in all sizes and you can carry stuff in it
luggage leather coffee brown, caramel clothes and hair curl belt for my waist, but the holes run out before it’s tight, so maybe I’ll dig a new one. Or get a new belt.
I couldn’t carry him and his disorders with me. I had fought to make my way to New York all my life and now was the time to reap the rewards I’d waited for. I couldn’t care less that my heart screamed I was in love, I’d shut down many other screams in my head, what was one more?
My luggage is stored under the plane. I have no idea what goes on down there, but I assume my bags are bumped around with everyone else’s. I just hope my stuff doesn’t fall out.
Pag gusto kong pumunta sa ibang bansa, dyan ako sasakay. Para may thrill. XD
Luggage. That’s all there really is, y’know? You can’t walk around life without at least one small bag of it. Your own personal weight. Maybe it isn’t the weight of the world, maybe some days you exaggerate how much it weighs you down…but other days you do all you can to hide it. You tuck it so far out of your mind that you think, for once… its really gone. Of course it isn’t, it never will be. Its permanent and it can only grow larger. Heavier.
Pshh, this old thing? What are you talking about? I’ve had it for so long I can barely remember that its there. Its like a scar so faded people don’t believe you had it, but you know. You subconsciously trace your fingers along its edges all day long. Reliving the incident in your subconscious.
People will believe you. They can’t judge the weight, they are lacking perspective that isn’t their own. Everybody else’ luggage looks the same. You can’t pass it over and have them hold it. Its not a physical thing like a book or a charm hung around your neck. Its tied to your heart and it pulls it down through your stomach if you let it.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice on that matter.
There will be days when you wake up and you truly believe that it is gone. That you’re fucking free. Finally. Finally you can sit up and hold a conversation like everybody else. You can pretend that nothing bothers you.
I know, Its eating away at your soul. It will be till the day you die.
If you think about, its probably one of the worst afflictions a person can have. Then again, everyone has it.
Some days you think it might just tear you in half. It might just plummet right through you destroying everything in its path. Who will you be then? When you disappear within it? This thing, so simple, that you lug around everywhere with you.
Can you let it go? Can you break free from your own personal jail cell. A constant reminder that maybe you -aren’t- good enough, strong enough, pretty enough. Maybe, you never will be. Maybe…probably.
Let me take a look at your luggage. Let me try to judge it. Let me lift what you lift for a moment. Its only fair trade if you hold mine while I hold yours. Isn’t it?
the luggage i carry is heavy
but they say never look back
so i’ll live for today, stay clean today
because that’s all i have
She coughed on the dusty that flew off her suitcase as she plopped it on the floor. How long had it been since she’d last flown on an airplane? Ten years at least. She was just a kid then. But now the time for looking at pretty postcards and ogling the luggage for sale in Kohls was over. Greta would not only see the world, but be a part of it at last. She turned up the volume on iTunes and skipped through the house rocking out to Kelly Clarkson’s song “Breakaway.”
She slowly started the engine to the rusted old red ’74 Chevy. It gave up a fight, but rumbled into gear.
She reversed and pulled out of the driveway, and began down the street.
Passing neighbors, joggers, and children, She smiled.
She knew they were completely oblivious to anyone’s life but their own.
They then reached the end of the street, and the boy in the passenger seat said “Where to anyway?”
A small smile arose at the edges of her light pink chapped lips.
“Nowhere, yet. Anywhere really. Anywhere but here.”
And, they drove. For hours, for miles.
The music sped up, slowed, sped up again.
The only thing that held them together was the fear of being alone and the single suitcase they shared.
She looked around her house and her life and tried to convince herself that, if necessary, she could do well without any of the material objects she’d spend her life assembling. Memories matter more than materials, and she doesn’t really need all of those books she’d promise that she’d reread at some point, the clothes which were never as good of a deal as convinced herself standing in the checkout counter of department stores.
In reality, it was easy to tell from her daily habits that this wasn’t the case. Going to the store required a purse that was probably designed as a messenger bag, overnight trips involved at least a backpack’s contents, and any voyage longer than two days meant at least two types of luggage that was mostly filled with “just in case” activities, and “This might be the trip when I find that I really do like wearing heels, so I should bring a few different pairs” supplies.
I packed all of my suitcases for our trip. So many countries squeezed into such a small amount of time, and right after Pappa’s death. How could I possibly know what I would need? I remember that I simply never unpacked. No therapy. Just go go go. Never the chance to recover.
I took a trip to Venezuela last week and the damn airline lost my luggage. It took nearly two weeks to recover the bags and i went in the same rages for that period of time, the locals thought of me as a homeless wretch and i thought of myself as the lowest of the low for having presented myself in such a manor.
pack everything you’ll need. sneakers, scarves and jeans. 10 days, 10 nights. don’t forget the condoms. you probably won’t use them but it’s the thought that counts.
I don’t like luggage. When I see it, it always signals to me that someone is leaving. Never coming, always leaving. Always packing their lives up in a neat package and walking away from me.
Even walking by the luggage section in a department store leaves me cold.
you take it on holidays and put your clothing and stuff in them. they go down the ramps to get to airplane. sometimes they get stuck and leave the bag behind and you get to the place you going and then your like oh no they forgot it!
They packed their luggage onto the plane. Gilbert, unfortunately, did not know that it had to go through the baggage claim first. How they got past the baggage claim was a mystery. Perhaps the security guards were too busy invading people’s bathrooms, you know IN THE BATHROOM. You know, like in the Great Mighty Poo’s lair.
It is where you put things like items of clothing when you are going to a faraway place.
Swim suit, flip flops, sun tan lotion, huge fluffy towels, the over-sized t-shirt, and a bag full of books. Yeah, I’m ready for a vacation.
Upon seeing the house – with the sky-blue painting chipped, the door on its hinges and the windows cracked – Lydia’s knees wobbled.
“It’s okay,” She told herself. She straightened and breathed deeply. She needed to do this.
She stepped inside and was greeted by the smell of woodchips and the sounds of scurrying rats. The stove was rusted. A bedframe was rotting in the corner.
“I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m okay.” she whispered repeatedly. For her to be free of her emotional baggage, she needed to confront this. To come here.
It wasn’t until she saw the cracks above the stove wall that her knees gave and the tears began to flow.
he grabbed his luggage and started to make his way toward me, but i couldn’t even wait any longer, so i ran for the first time since the doctor told me to stop running and threw my arms around him and he dropped that stupid luggage to spin me around. and i knew we were being the cliche couple in the airport, but i haven’t felt at home since i left the track, and this might be just a little bit better.
This was it. Word leather handle of the luggage didn’t feel heavy in my hand anymore; if anything it pulled me toward the day. I know I must have looked scattered and distant in my husband’s drunken eyes, fleeing out that door. Leaving bitter words to eat at him, I left, the bruises throbbing, my head still damp with blood.
My whole summer consists of lugging my clothes around in luggage. We go here, there, everywhere and I love it. But sometimes, just sometimes I wish I could stay and get to know the place I live in, you know?
it’s midnight and i try to feel.
next door, the sweet elderly couple are watching reality TV,
clicking their tongues while laughing along.
i think about your smile and your hair as it falls on my shoulder, like a love story,
in the way a person feels but doesn’t understand
art. compassion. a falling flower.
i want to stop swallowing poison. instead i
feed it to you in spoonfuls; anything to empty the bottle.
it trickles through my teeth and you lap it up.
my wet chin burns.
the couple next door are silent now.
it is a losing battle: i will never be good enough.
and like this: i dream enough for the both of us.
in other words: i’d rather spend my life asleep.
basically: i will not spend it with you.
the sun across wooden floorboards. a hand rooting through my sternum. bare feet tucked into the couch cushions.
you will always be you
but then,
i will always be me.
Sometimes there are little pieces of people strewn about in parts of the city with special memories locked into leather lockboxes. Sometimes people carry heavy things which may wither away; it happens because materialism does not like to follow us to the grave. There are lemon-yellow duffels which hold soft things that young women need to make themselves feel above standard and important. And beautiful. They bring their duffels and their monogrammed Louis and their Balenciaga motorcycle vintage collector’s edition filled with subservient objects to help them become objectified. Yet, women object to objectification.
The luggage weighed more than I had expected. Though it wasn’t much; as I had figured my mother had packed my bag again. Only then I began to worry if I had forgotten something and there I sat for an entire half an hour while others passed curiously throughout the airport. I slunk back into my seat after searching, finally satisfied. She had left out the toothpaste.
Baggage. You are old, heavy and oversized fee mongering luggage that I want to check and the gate and never claim.
Luggage reminds me of travel. It’s a way to escape. You throw all your things into a couple of bags and just…take off. Then, for a while, you just live out of your bag. It also shows just how few possessions we REALLY need, when it comes down to it. The fact that we can fit all our necessities into just a few bags? We, as humans, value our belongings entirely too much.
words that carry me through all places throughout the world. some are light as a feather, others I struggle to drag behind me, scraping the linoleum floor, creating white scratches as if a cat had had an epileptic seizure in the bathroom.
It wasn’t as if she was afraid of someone taking her luggage, oh no, she was afraid of the zipper. The zipper on the pocket of her bag with her razors had become loose while on the flight, and it was ready to slip. She needed to grab her bag before someone moved it aside or tried to help her with it. And just as she reached out to snatch it, someone pushed it out of their way. The zipper slid, her box fell, the metal hit the floor with a ping.
Items in which you put your personal belongings such as clothes, toiletries, etc. for traveling.
There are people everywhere, everywhere, milling about or striding hurriedly by or even, like him, standing back and scanning the crowd. There are so many coats, mostly brown, what is it with people and brown coats? His is forest green, but to be fair, it had been a gift. If he’d picked out his own he probably would have grabbed the first one he saw, and it probably would have been brown, too.
The baggage claim spits out a new batch of bags and almost immediately he spots the one he’s looking for. He grabs it and stands back and waits again, eager now, hand clenched hard around the handle
portmanteau – portage – port – to carry. He carries his luggage around with him, drags it behind him, carries it within him. His words are all he has.
luggage is awesome. one time, all of my luggage dropped out of my suitcase and i missed my flight. HAHAH just kidding. that would = waist of money/time. not so cool now is it? i love writing under pressure…. oops off topic. forgot what i was gonna write. running out of time. bye
They met while she was on R&R, he showed her around town and soon enough he thought she was the one. but little did he know, that was her specialty. last he heard she still travelling the world, breaking hearts. and she never once lost her luggage
I’m a neat freak
a packing machine
folding clean sheets, stack, repeat
shirts are purposely creased along the seams
until the buttons line with the lining
collars are perfectly perpendicular to the pockets
all placed loveingly in the suitcase
just in case
we ever go anywhere
Dressed with luggage at my feet standing outside felt so good I think I would still be there if it wasn’t for the cat watching me. Something about cats disturbs me, they exude an aura of feral pursuit even when sitting in the sun, watching. It was time to leave, distract myself with other places and movement again. But what was I leaving behind, was this also an escape?