Secret Box
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When we were made,
in the same guise and form and shape,
we were given each a secret box,
empty from the beginning.
Over hours and days and months and years,
when a certain occasion strikes,
happy or tinged with the blue of neglect,
with no need for grammar we write them down
on invisible slips of paper,
and gently slip them in,
then lock the box with a key whose location
we quickly forget. Until the next unhappy event.
The box is both sacred and profane.
Then someone touches your life.
Dark roses bloom in your secret box,
unsettling the hinges. The key whose location
you have forgotten sometimes finds its way
into her hands. You are pleased. Why wouldn't you?
Now the responsibilities are twinned,
you slip promises into each other's safehouses,
watch them grow and prosper with delight.
It lasts only for a little while.
Then doubt mists over, a slow cloak of frost,
and the secret box seals shut.
Impervious to desperate agitation.
Then you turn to the other,
in words you didn't know you possessed,
you gently bid her leaving.
She has no want to want your secrets,
you have no desire to let her in.
An inexplicable, fallible bind.
Unless she accepts that you are whole and distinct,
flawed just as she is. If not more.
Your worlds may converge, sturdy as a handshake.
Until then, the invisible walls of the secret box
folds into itself, like a cold clenched fist, and waits. -
Dark poem!
Let me take a closer look.
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Originally posted by peebrain:
As a children, we are innocent and uncontaminated by any form of passion.
When we were made,
in the same guise and form and shape,
we were given each a secret box,
empty from the beginning.Over hours and days and months and years,
Invisible slips of paper refer to mental notes made after certain events; the box refers to the mind?
when a certain occasion strikes,
happy or tinged with the blue of neglect,
with no need for grammar we write them down
on invisible slips of paper,
and gently slip them in,
then lock the box with a key whose location
we quickly forget. Until the next unhappy event.The box is both sacred and profane.
Ah yes, this line indicates one's noble dreams and forbidden lusts?
Then someone touches your life.
This stanza sounds like one has found someone who understands the reader's thoughts. Perhaps the reader thinks he has found a familiar? Or someone who thinks like him.
Dark roses bloom in your secret box,
unsettling the hinges. The key whose location
you have forgotten sometimes finds its way
into her hands. You are pleased. Why wouldn't you? -
nice poem
but the key to my secret box gone missing
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hmmm.. so so very subtle.
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Love poem.
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I have read this several times, and frankly I think it is almost perfect. There are so many things to like here.Originally posted by DeadPoet:Dark poem!
Let me take a closer look. -
You not only forget the key, but you even forget you had the box in the first place at times.
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Thank you for your kind comments.
When I wrote this, it was during one of the more introspective periods in my life, where suddenly, ambition and reality seem to collide in ways that are at times painful, at times hopeful but never once bland.
And since there's always an inherent contradiction between wanting to keep one's identity distinct and hoping others will see you for what you are, not what you have to offer... I wanted to examine the nature of these opposable emotions.
hence 'Secret Box'.
And I'm glad you enjoyed it.