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Not long after I moved into my first apartment, I started keeping an archive    By ‘archive’ I mean a shoebox under the bed Those were days when it was hard to believe anyone would ever care who I was, where I had come from, or where I was going I had quit my day job as a journalist and decided to devote myself completely to my life as a poet and a writer, but, unsurprisingly, the path was far from straightforward For a long time, the box stayed empty, collecting dust as, night after night, I dreamt in the bed above   One day all that changed, when I was commissioned to write about Caribbean writers and their literary archives The project showed me how the most meaningful things in life can be fragile and ephemeral, and that, without a record somewhere, all of that substance can vanish like a forgotten memory   The shoebox filled Then it was replaced with a plastic container I got from Excellent City Centre on Frederick Street, Port of Spain, Trinidad Soon, one container was not enough: I got three more I started to keep everything: books, printed programmes, flyers I had a boyfriend who would make jokes about this One day I drank a bottled water at a literary panel at a university He kept the bottle and later said, ‘For the archive?’ We broke up not long after   Anybody who was interested in art in Port of Spain during this period – the late 2000s to the late 2010s – would have encountered my friend Rodell Warner I remember going to events and picking up his sleek, intriguing zines, some of which made it into my archives just because My apartment was in Belmont, where Warner is originally from, near to all the free art spaces in the capital I went to all of the exhibitions and film screenings I could, was in awe of Caribbean talent, gave or attended poetry readings, flirted with boys, drank too much, felt on the brink of possessing important knowledge, quoted Derrida too often, anticipated the dawn of a new