First Love: Ephemera

There’s a box lying somewhere. Somewhere in a dusty cupboard. Somewhere behind old paper, older words, and wounds older still. Somewhere no one can find it. I think about it, sometimes. Sometimes, when I breathe. Sometimes, when I exhale puffs of grey smoke and let those rashes bleed. Sometimes, when in the dead of night, my lashes are wet. Sometimes, when I’m looking somewhere, lost and stumble upon a sunset. Apples and peaches, Magentas and vermilions, Pearls and emeralds, all strewn across a cobalt, teal sky. The sky you loved. I drown in it when no one’s looking. No one would understand, anyway. I miss them reflected in that shard of glass we held together. The one that broke, in giggles and hysterics, that very summer. The one that I, upon a whim, hid in a wooden chest. The one that I, with trembling hands, unlatched years later. Long after you had left. And it’s much too late... to go back. Much too late.