The Charm Bracelet

A Poem by Jade Mayhew

A package wrapped up beautifully was left upon my door, my name written on a label in a hand I'd seen before. My heartbeat pounding rapidly; I froze right to my core. My eyes, they flooded up with tears and I couldn't feel the floor.

Carefully, I broke the tape and slowly looked inside. I opened up the plain brown box and felt my eyes grow wide. Packaged with some bubble wrap and a bow, so neatly tied, a bracelet laid, with charms attached: the gift he'd tried to hide.

It measured just to fit my wrist, made up of golden bands. A half a dozen charms beneath that only I would understand. Each signified a point along our journey, all unplanned. A smile crossed my broken heart and a tremor shook my hands.

The first charm was a set of waves: the day that we first met. Two young children down the beach... one happy, one upset. He made my heart beat in a way I hadn't felt of yet. That day's set in my memory; til death, I won't forget.

The second charm, I fought a grin. The pen meant many things: the letters that we'd write for years, the jokes our notes would bring, my writing that I'd only share on how my moods would swing, the stories that he'd let me read and songs he'd helped me sing.

Somehow he found the jungle gym to give me my third charm. I laughed as I recalled the nights we tripped the school's alarm. The time I fell off from the top and almost broke my arm. Our jungle gym was our escape, where we could hide from harm.

I felt a tear stream down my cheek as the next charm caught my eye. A music note was dangling; my lungs released a sigh. As songs of ours played through my mind, I tried so not to cry: first dance, first kiss, first love and loss, down to the last goodbye.

The camera that I handled next brought back the smile to my face. Each memory that I revived, the camera was their base. We filled up books of photographs of each person, time or place to make sure we'd remember them and memories, not replaced.

The final charm's significance, it tore my will apart. It was something that I once had held and had held from the start. It meant more than a memory or written piece of art. For as I held the charm aloft, I held my best friend's heart.

A note peeked out beneath the box with writing that I knew. It started out with just my name, then, "Merry Christmas, love, to you. I'm sure you've heard the rumors and you know by now, they're true. But I thought these charms might make your day and stop you feeling blue.

So with Christmas fast approaching, please keep this bracelet close. Remember, you're my everything, the one I love the most!" I suddenly remembered reading true love doesn't boast. And my broken heart reminded me, it also doesn't keep with ghosts.

I slipped the bracelet on my wrist, stepped out into the cold, walked past our playground's jungle gym and memories of old. I stopped beside a graveyard and released my self control. I held his tombstone as I cried, with the bracelet made of gold.

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