Postmarked 'Back to Sender'

I feel sad tonight, and I don’t know why. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt so desolate. That acute feeling of loneliness, that desperate pang which sends its message into my heart . . . it’s too painful.

Some part of me feels that I shouldn’t think this way about myself. That it’s ugly, that it’s bad. I can look myself in the mirror, and the portrait reflected back at me is horribly disfigured, and scarred. I turn the mirror on its pivot point, and see someone else entirely . . .  the angle of my jaw looks fierce.  

I refuse to look at the portrait that is presented.

I feel sad. I’m thinking of all of the friends I have lost, those who haven’t kept in touch with me, and they- he- who I loved, but hadn’t loved me. All that I’ve had to give up, due to circumstances, twisting roads and crossed lines, which never really met at point . . . the lines that have fell away, ribbons and ties that once held my heart-

And, like a package that was unwrapped, they fell away, and left it open and bare. The heart that was imprinted upon the eye, which was seen but was not noted-

The hurt that I felt when I called but was not heard from . . . the sender and receiver of a package that, after being opened was sent back . . . as it was not wanted.

The sting of opening up my heart, and laying it out before me. Bare, naked and unashamed . . . fully revealed, the veins within pulsing with love and emotion. Organic, red, and raw . . . I let it be seen in its form. I let it bleed, gushing with torrents of love and pain-

But it was sent back to me.

 

So, I’ve wrapped up my heart and placed it back inside me. I wrapped it up cleanly, even though you tore off the lid- I’ve placed everything back inside correctly . . .

And now, I look in the mirror and see my reflection. Cool and collected and shiny, I am the package that everyone merits. The pristine image of confidence air, hair and blue eye-shadow, and bouncing kid’s braids. The vital and happy girl that bubbles with mirth-

But when I turn around, I see an entirely different image. For, deep inside of my breast is a real organ, something that no one wishes to see. One that pulses with life as it bleeds . . . one that I can know intimately. I can touch it and press it . . . run my fingers over it as no one else did. Rock it in my hands and take it, as a mother takes a child into her breast . . .  

Because there’s something between the ribbons. She was seen, but not heard from, and her package was sent back, as she was touched but not loved . . .

Postmarked ‘Back to Sender.’