The shoe boxes gather dust where our fingers used to be.
Constant in opening them up like those gifts on Christmas.
Faded pictures, torn letters, and even a drawing – just for me.
The happy memories follow me like a moth to a flame.
But don’t you see? Intoxication keeps us in our misery.
The pictures are drenched in smiles. The day the spaces
between my fingers were longing for your touch.
The way the deserts long for a drop or two of rain.
These letters and promises with your small but firm print.
The words intertwined with hope and smudged ink.

“Remember the good times,” you would say.
But it’s the good times that leave me missing.
So I will douse the memories in gasoline.
Don’t try and smother the fire, for it will burn you.
And if the smoke still lets my lungs expand,
I’ll slip the hollow boxes underneath my warm bed.
When I wake, I’ll be a newborn fresh out of the womb.
And when the sun falls, I will let my eyes slip shut with a smile.
Behind my eyelids are dreams made out of fairy dust and clouds.
A place where I can fly, knowing empty boxes rest beneath me.