Parcels.
Nobody uses that word anymore.
Maybe because our world has grown too heavy
for light,
pretty words like that.
We don’t carry parcels.
I carry boxes, hand-made by Pandora.
We pull suitcases,
the invisible kind that we have to drag
up the stairs and make it look
Normal.
We struggle under the weight of boulders-solid all the way
through.
Parcels. When people had parcels they had apple pie all the
time.
They had white picket fences and problems that were hollow,
but what they didn’t admit is that their feather-light
parcels
were really boxes of stone.
I lied to you
today.
Looked straight at you and completely, knowingly,
intentionally
gave you my slick parcel, all wrapped up in the shiny paper
of normalcy,
tiny problems like procrastination glinting in the bow.
But I kept my suitcase.
I kept my Pandora’s box and opened it later, when you
weren’t around.
I didn’t want you to know.
But the tricky thing is that I can keep lying for as long as
I want.
This particular boulder is completely invisible, and I’m
afraid that
if I tell you about it
it’ll sit on your chest and
crush your heart.
But parcels, on the other hand.
Those are pretty.
You can take them with you; admire the normal size,
the nice wrapping, the all-too expertly tied bow.
But that’s as far as you’ll get. There isn’t anything inside
because it’s a parcel. It’s not real.
And the world has gotten a little less shiny, but not enough
that I can look straight at you after 19 hours and say,
“I’m explaining my wounds and dissecting my scars.”
You wouldn’t understand; you couldn’t in a minute, and that’s
all I had.
And I was scared to lose you so I lied.
Forgive me.
