Humans destroy and break things—hence the invention of bandages, spackle, superglue, duct tape and  a whole industry providing windshield repair. But humans may lose more things than they break. I don’t have the percentages on me right now—I think I left them in the other side of my brain. So write a prompt for what you have lost—phone in the toilet, wedding ring in the ocean, your Play-Doh partner from preschool, your imaginary friends and real friends and frenemies, your belief in human progress, your cat Fluffy, your hope for the future, your memory of last Thursday, your childhood self and your sense of self. 

Imagine an afterlife in which all that you have lost is reunited. You are surrounded by mixtapes and house keys, friends and library books, grandparents and pets, all of the former selves and the self-confidence you held for one whole week...

I love both of these poems: “In the Museum of Lost Objects” by Rebecca Lindbergh and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. 

Not pearly gates but gates to somewhere...