by Selena Perkins

The scent of curry still lingers on the insides of my pockets from my last trip. I guarded precious hand-carved statues and necklaces made of exotic beads from the many possible thumps and jabs throughout the journey. I sacrificed a paint chip from my top left corner, right next to my ivory handle, in the airport just before getting on my flight back home. My once gleaming evergreen shell has now been dulled down to a moss green. My cold brass lock, still just as the day I was made, served as a barrier between the world and the secrets hidden amidst layers of rose-pink silk inside.

I traveled to Taiwan, Ethiopia, Iceland, and Cuba. I spent a summer enveloped in Alaska's never-ending sunlight; I lounged for three weeks, coated in flies, on the coast of Mozambique. Guatemala held the brightest stars I had ever seen.

I was filled with too-ripe plantains and the most vibrant chili peppers the world has to offer. I was engulfed in a sea of drumbeats on my way to a hotel and I watched strikingly beautiful women dance the flamenco on street corners in my haste to catch a flight.

Now I sit in the corner of a teenage girl's room, my pockets filled with notes passed hastily during history class and dried rose petals commemorating past boyfriends; my brass locks only unlatched every so often to cram in a few more mememtos of youth. Here I'm left, curry burning, aching for the day I will once again see the county the world has to offer.

Congratulations to Selena. She was a runner-up in Writing magazine's Treasured Objects Contest. Students wrote about their favorite things in such insightful and powerful ways. Check back for the next two weeks to see more runners-up.