My Box

My Box
Yellow, gold, green, and over exposed.
Images of yesterday to color my thinking.
Bent and pulled, shapes appear in odd sizes, odd ways, odd phrases.
They matched the odd ways I felt about myself.
These images, dirty, unclean
stained my mind. Inky images, warped and twisted
what I saw in the mirror.
I kept these images in a box. It's edges weathered and sore.
Fresh grey cardboard exposed to a world it was never meant to see.
The shelf I kept the box on was worn away and grooved.
Smooth edges made rough by repeated use.
Each new image, snapped and saved, was stored in my box
To be viewed at random.
Each new way I had saved and savored.
How I failed myself, failed others.
Worn away welcoming faces by repeated use
Of jagged and thorny edges.
The images become bent and folded in time.
The strains of studying my own wreckage and horror
Would spill down, becoming
Spots of water that pool and pull the color out of each fresh image,
until it's warped and twisted, bent and worn
Like all of the others stored in my box.
This box became my burden. My treasure. My horror.
But not anymore.
The box has been pulled down.
The shelf is gone, and nowhere to be found.
Buried in the back yard in an unmarked grave,
I have finally placed my box and these images in their proper place
to stay.