The lid slides off

I let you place only your fingers at its edge

But not your eyes,

Not yet

What can you feel?

Can you feel the grit of salt?

All that is left

from years of grieving?

Can you feel absence?

Does it feel cold, pale,

fading

or stinging, hard, and hot?

I will let you reach into this box

and find with your hands

what I cannot yet let be seen

In the bottom of this box

is my heart.

Aerope 2008 (c)

Words she spat at me and never recanted

that I still hear echoing inside of my head.

The look of fear. The look of disgust. The look of hatred. A key to a car I do not own nor drive.

The smell of beer and the print of hands upon my neck.

A string of beads attached to her belt.

All of the 'never's and the 'not anymore's – except for two.

A bottle of Jack Daniels. Empty.

And a mirror, at the very bottom of the box, if I make it all the way through.

And on an unrelated note, I think your crushes on The Divine Miss M and Helen Reddy are adorable.

Dirty looks from my mother's parents for my unending tears.

My father being shoved out of the "immediate family only" room for mourning.

My mother in a box.

Falling to the ground with uncontrollable screams.

The feeling of "this is the worst thing that will ever happen."

i am a sexual being

i am not the good one

nor am i Proserpine

just me.

and i like it.

The tears that fell onto my collar bone,

The whispered lies they told me,

The sparkling diamonds the world promised me,

The glamor I've achieved by selling myself,

And the path that is not yet complete…

This is too much for one box to hold…so I help it out and carry it with me always.

and,

sadly,

all the time that I spent in treatment and AA

since then, nothing has really hurt

(I don't think anything could)

and that is wonderful

perhaps I can take anything with a smile

people think I'm an obnoxiously cheerful

head in the clouds idealist

and never have real problems

the truth would frighten them