Blue Box

Blue box

You say you remember a little girl who looked like me, and she was always with a little boy. Every day they'd be together
and the little boy would tell the little girl that he loved her
long hair; she knew that she'd never cut it off.
Then she wasn't so little anymore - fourteen, fifteen, and even sixteen. The little boy and the little girl grew, but they were still children.
And the girl's hair grew. Down her back it fell, and the little boy ran his fingers through it. He told her he loved it, but she knew that he really loved her.
Then, one summer, they unlocked that iron lock that had fastened the relationship that they had created over the years. Each had caged themselves into a little child that neither wanted to be.
But the little girl held on, with her small fingers, to the key, and she didn't know why. Everyday she combed her long, golden hair, remembering how it felt when his fingers used to run through it, when he'd whisper pretty lies in her ears.
Then, one day, determined to overcome the images of him that were burned into her memory, she cut her long silky hair and tied it to the key; she put them in a blue box, and shut them in her dresser drawer.
The little girl began to change.
She stopped writing poems.
She stopped singing as often;
and she became an actress in the school play.
She didn't laugh as often, and she didn't smile as much.
But she began to forget the little boy, and she stopped having dreams about him.
And as she forgot him, the little girl began to fade away.
As the little girl's face became faint, a new face appeared in its stead.
It was the face of a young woman, and she did not like little girls.
She began to forget the face of the little girl whom she had replaced.
But the little girl did not want to be forgotten, and so rather than allow herself to be entirely erased, she crawled into a box. And in the box, she found the little boy. It was a blue box with golden hair.