Box of Chocolates

BOX OF CHOCOLATES My heart aches for those who vanish — a variety like chocolates, melting into vanquished existence. First and farewell - those lucky who have died, without having their names besmirched — the young and old, the hospitable and the sweet character of a spinning song, twirling on a record player charming like a little girl’s dress spreading with happiness. But others leave us up in arms they tug and pull, like Cinderella’s stepsisters, leaving our lives in tatterdemalion squalor. Some vacate seats in our pews, we feel their smiles floating, fleeting and their hugs — incomplete. Our workplaces like a revolving door bringing in presents, leaving with bows and my heart bobs near the shore. Often it is the way people let us down, chasing away the way we want things to be, leaving us with a sore muscle, entangled in hopeless chains, with slender fingers reaching for the wispy-mist of life and love — and endless raging river of serrated waves. So long and farewell but know this, I for one miss...you and you and you for somewhere lies a perfect life, with golden names and trellises, pearls like lampposts, vivid-red apples, a fairytale come true in degrees of hue. A box of chocolates, recaptured, brought to holy knees — taught by God to be friends of a lasting succulent kind where death’s door can never open or close, roses kiss our lips, lovely robes touch or hearts, and hallelujahs with wings perpetually pump agape life into our lungs. 12/26/2017