Shoebox
She opens the lid and
looks inside to find
it
empty
just like at the
beginning.
When she's done
she knows it will be
full
of all the
empty
promises of the
past.
Despite the pain
it brings she
collects
all of the things
that remind her
of just what
she's been trying
to forget.
A bracelet here
a photograph there
ticket stubs
a guitar pick
even
a mini-golf scorecard
(She won.)
She wonders if it
will be big
enough
to hold it all in
the way that her
heart
couldn't.
Life has too many
what if's
too many
missed chances
too many
lost opportunities
too many
unknowns.
Could she have
done something
different
that would've made him
stay?
Will
she
ever
really
know?
Does
she
want
to?
So in goes
the trinkets
and
mementos
and
silly little things
that only the
two
of them would ever
understand.
The tears she cried
for him
have long since stopped
in their place resides
the leaden weight of
nothing.
Grabbing a permanent
marker
she writes his name on the side
beginning with a
T
and ending with a
Y
with her mixed up MOM
in between.
The ink seeps into
the brown cardboard
sort of like her heart
bled
on the pavement
in the rubber marks left
from his tires.
Impassively
she closes the lid
and places it on the
highest
shelf in her closest
as far back
as she can manage.
It will sit up there
for a period of
time
that no one knows the
actual length of
because it is an
undetermined amount.
Turning away
she realizes that
something is
missing.
But there is
nothing
she can do about it.
Because she
can't
pack away her
heart
in a shoebox.