Brown Velvet box

Sometimes, in the dark hours, when the birds in the parking garage are silent, and all I can hear is the shushing of the tires of the homebound late shift workers, I think about you.

I try to remember the good times, the times in Technicolor, filled with heart and soul so deep all I could see was rich, brown velvet.
In a box,

that velvet climbed up the walls, caressed the bottom, contained my heart and closed it in, with cover tight. We had a thing that I am unable to name. Your face was my face, I was you and you were me…I think.

But when the chips were on the table, when it was time to show our cards, you folded. Folding, for me, was not an option. I played my hand, but it wasn’t big enough for you, wasn’t high enough, wasn’t dear enough, because you walked away from the table.

The ripple from your exit still nudges my boat.

Your hateful, negligent rhetoric and absence ripped great, bleeding wounds so deep inside me, that even now when I remember then, 
the scar tissue tingles faintly.

I was never able to let you go, because you see, you were careless enough to leave part of you with me. Funny that you didn’t even miss those parts. You were so full of yourself that those tiny, flickering flames you left me never had the power to make you turn, to look, to see how, as time progressed in my world, those flames became the light with which I traversed my world.

Now I am just I.

And you are living on another planet. I would not want you, or anyone to open that box for me, because you see, my heart was locked inside it. Lid tightly closed, It sits, in shock, unable to move beyond. I’ve tried. I don’t have the technology.

But I’ve learned to persevere. Which is different than to thrive, and in persevering I was able to release my self to those brilliant flames, that you chose to ignore for year upon years. 

So you may now have one of those flames, and I dearly pray you don’t do or say anything to snuff it out. This one needed you; she had always possessed the uncanny talent to get exactly what she wanted.

It’s not for me to say whether it’s right or wrong, it just is. But let me assure you, here and now, if you hurt or damage that flame in any way, I will come after you with a wrath you’ve never even imagined I possessed.

The Source
The streets of Chicago…In the springtime of the year you can taste the flowering,and feel the silky air caress your skin.At dusk, in summer you can hear the streets sigh with relief as the sun sets and humid air rises like a twirling, cartwheeling tap dancer leery of touching down on the moist, spongy asphalt.
In the autumn the smell is smoke.And sounds are crisp, and children crunch and stomp through fallen piles of leaves.And pump to the sky on rusty chain swings; head down, feet up.
And winter will take your life if you don’t know how to sidestep quickly.The purple sky is bruised and hurting and mean enough to punish you,you the innocent watcher,for no reason.
But winter also sings; the voice is icicles; tinkling bell notes,glittering in streetlights, mesmerizing your mind,drawing you slowly over icy sidewalks,searching for the source;the source of sound,and light,and warmth.