The box. The box is a metaphor in itself. It doesn’t exist in any tangible sense, but oh, what a metaphor. What a cliché. Open the cliché and BANG.
There it is.
The past preserved – buried, successfully forgotten about. Hermetically sealed scents and sounds of years ago, an album of feelings locked away because they were so damn heavy. They were so raw, so sore.
We look so young. You look so beautiful, so little different I realise now, after all this time spent forgetting. You cover your mouth in nearly every photo, but your eyes are always staring at me. Into me. They stare and do not blink. I look thinner, more stupid maybe. There’s a simpleness to the way I glance at the world that I can’t place, as if I’ve seen none of it before. We really do look so young. I can see something burning behind my eyes. There’s an urgency, like a heartbeat, heavy and furious beneath bones afraid to contain it. Something that isn’t there anymore. It’s in every picture, making me look different – expressions on my face I’m somehow not used to seeing in the mirror. And then I see it – the simpleness that burns, and why. Why I no longer see it reflected at bath time, in puddles when it rains or on tube journeys by myself.
Love. I am completely burning inside with love for you. I am on fire in every image I see. In every single photograph I see it and I remember.
This is the box I shut away and buried – forgot it even existed – so I could never remember again.
“They were so raw, so sore.”
It’s a cliche, perhaps, but some cliches hold universal truths when you unfold them with such honesty. I’m raw and I’m sore. And maybe I’m selfish, but honestly? I’m glad you have boxes if it means writing like this.
Yes, I find the past very heavy at times, too. You were smart to bury it away and forget it, instead of trying to drag it around with you all the time, the way that I do.
Beautifully, wonderfully written.
god, that was so beautifully written
I love that Love changes faces
and I hope someone sees it back at them , from you, again.
Some things are best kept under the bed for eternity, in a tatty box. Though the box should be dragged out every now and then, almost daily.
I cannot wait to read a book of yours if each page holds such promise as this piece of writing. So keep going at it – chapter 11 now I presume?
And thanks for adding my blog under ‘Good new reads’ – much appreciated :)
Burning, simple, painful, beautiful memories.
You’re all very lovely. Thank you.