Sincerely, Jennifer x

Much like Pandora,
I’ve opened a box,
started something I can’t finish,
so, now I’m staring at a starry eyed reflection,
trying to focus on not falling through the floor,
because I told myself a secret that I can’t take back.

I can’t swallow it again.
Though I am gentle with my aching oesophagus,
she simply says “no”.
She has suffered enough,
covering up for me,
and she won’t do it anymore.

All the things I’ve thought to myself are now painted on the walls in my blood.
I used to hear them from the box,
a pulsing, tempting drum beat that shook through to the floor and whispered to the walls,
but I would simply say “no”,
and pretend that all I heard was soft symphonies and the songs of well behaved birds.

The birds no longer sing for me.
The orchestra are hiding in that old box.
Perhaps they’ve gone to somebody else that needs them,
naive in their belief that I can survive my secret on my own.
I stare at my starry eyed reflection,
rejecting her, in all ways,
but holding her hand in mine as we venture through the door,
because if the birds won’t return,
I’m all that she’s got.

A long gone songbird told me that it gets better,
but I think that she may have been lying.
It’s easy to spot a lie a mile off when you are a lie yourself,
and the sweeter it sounds,
the harder it is to swallow,
when the sun rises,
and everything is still as dark as you left it the night before.