Can we rest?

"we may shine
we may shatter
may be pickin up the pieces here on after
we are fragile we are human
we are shaped by the light let through us
we break fast
cause we are glass."




The second
blurs in my memory a little
because of boxing things up
and pain and things not said or
things said but roads not taken and
whatnot.

But there was a boymanchildthing
who got me out of my chain mail and
pulled me out of class one day and it was
pouring outside. Simply pouring.
Drenching.
and pulled me into a green grassy field
and said
Dance with me.

I was not amused
at first.
No
I said
I do not want to dance
and get rained on
are you crazy?

And he said
dance with me,
woman. We don't get
many signs like these.

And because
how often, really
does he ask you to dance
and it is raining(!)
I said yes.

It couldn't have
been the hours it felt like.
I know people saw us because
they spoke of it later
speculating on the beauty of it
hoping to make me blush
and deny it
but it felt like he had written me a song
and we were the only people who had
ever heard it and would ever heard it.
We danced and our bodies fit together
like two pieces of a puzzle
and all the gas and fire and rage and frustration
was just.....quiet.
We were quiet and didn't speak
we just danced
and I will never forget how cool and quiet it felt.
How comforted I was by the presence of someone
who took comfort in the rain as well.


In my reptile brain
this memory is classified as
highly painful. So it fades
and seems blurry and beautiful
so any refreshers would be appreciated
because a reclassification is in order
obviously.

There's a box
that I've had since I was
fourteen years old
and it is full of letters and
mementos
love letters I never sent
love letters people gave me
and goodbye letters
a few IDs and photos
that pain me to look at
and drawings
poetry that a man once
wrote to me
or about me
because thankfully
my last name was easy to rhyme with.
There's a letter from a man who claimed
I was the love of his life
and that he would never want any one
else, even though I'd broken his heart.
I don't know if that is still true
but I hope it is not.
There are notes between me and
my friends, because once we were in
our final year of high school
all we did was pass notes and
talk about everything and sometimes
I kept them and put them
in the big brown cigar box
because one day there will be a book
but for now, there is a box.
I keep the painful memories,
along with the beautiful ones,
locked in a box
or alternately on files
with strange names.
I really should print them out and put them
in the box, too.
Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
I haven't put anything in the box
in eight months
and that means that sometimes you
have to have hard copies of things that
made you cry
and that is what the box is for.
You can open it for an hour
and be entertained
or horrified
or just to remember love
and then close it.
and it will be gone until you decide to bring it back.