Curated

I found it after you left, sitting innocently amongst the clutter on my desk. We spent that morning in a strained silence that splintered from the night before. If we are to be honest, the tension had been building for months now. You are just too… regimented. I have begged you for patience again and again. I always seem to fall short then you feel bad for yelling. We know this dance; the steps are so familiar. I fall short, you get angry, I make it up to you, you apologize. I suppose that is the problem, I never apologize to you and now you have disappeared. You and everything you own, save for this small box wrapped in unassuming brown paper.

I was in the shower, so I failed to hear you call out to me but, I heard the door slam shut. I guess you planned it that way. A controlled exit, very much your style. It took me a few hours to notice. Truthfully, it was not until I was in the kitchen making lunch and then reached for the good knife to cut my sandwich that it became clear. The knife, your white mug that usually sat next to my yellow one. Your favorite wool sweater with the hole in the sleeve. Gone; no longer in their place. I walked around our space taking a quick inventory of all the missing pieces. The novelty candle that was meant to smell like dirt. At first, we laughed at its absurdity. Then, we began lighting it unironically during thunderstorms. Your Oscar Wilde books. That in this moment of searching, I remember you gushing about all the tragic romances pressed between the pages, like delicate dried daisies. The fiddle leaf fig who came so close to dying until we found the perfectly lit corner to settle it in. Where will you put it if that corner is the only place it can survive?

I see you have also taken the ancient daguerreotype of the little sleeping girl that we found at the swap meet. That is also the day you tried a candied apple for the first time. That same night I recall you complaining about the small cuts on your tongue made by the shards of the glassy sugar. I suppose we are like that candied apple; sweet and pretty and shining and hidden behind the façade is a tender mouth full of bleeding cuts.

And so, I continued to search even though the search itself had become ceremonial. It's clear that the lot of it, all the relics of our time together. All the moments spent drinking tea and reading to each other, and gently cradling one another through the darkest of cloudy days; are gone.

Except of course, for this box that I’ve never seen before. What could be in this box? It's not big enough to fit the good knife or your mug or… Or you for that matter. What can be contained in this package to fill this vacuum you have left behind? What salve or balm is small enough to fit but strong enough to heal? Perhaps you have weaved some magic, and all of it including you is inside this box. So I fear I can not open it. What if it all comes spilling out and turns to pixie dust before I can catch it? What if I cut myself on its contents? What if, the weight of all that is contained in this box sits heavy on my chest and I suffocate? I can not bear the finality. For this reason, I will be a well-behaved Pandora and keep this box taped shut. I will let all of the wonders and untold terrors remain as well as the most important of its contents; hope.