"It's our only way out," I urged but my companion seemed unimpressed.

"There's no way out. We've tried it so many times, now haven't we?"

"But if we give up then we've lost. We cannot give up ... or give in!"

"Tell me," he was belligerent, "What good came the last time we tried?"

"Well, we got a different result," I argued, "Isn't that progress?"

"Progress? Bah!"

"I know, I know ... I mean I'm growing sceptical myself, pal. But we cannot not try. Just once more. Please!"

"Trust me, the result will be the same. As a great man once said-"

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" I completed his sentence and then added, "That great man was Einstein"

"Fine I'll do it for you."

"No. Don't do it for me. Don't do it for any God. Don't do it for anyone or anything other than yourself!" I was losing my patience with him.

"Why? Why is this box so important?"

"Because ..." I had to pause and take a deep breath, "It is the only box capable of transformation, of radical change, of hope. Yes, this is the box of hope!"

A smirk and then a nod. I sighed.

I had managed to convince just one fellow citizen to trust the box, the ballot box. I think that was a good start.

I have a box

Hidden in the dark recesses

Of my soul,

It's there I lay my shameful,

Regretful thoughts and deeds.

My box remains securely safe

From peering eyes, judgement,

And all scorn;

’Tis where echoes fight for life

Amongst ever encroaching weeds.

One day

When I am strong and brave

I’ll swiftly strike a match and set it ablaze,

Then inhale the bitter stench of smoke

As I watch the inferno with glee.

Yes, one day

When I am strong and brave

I’ll discard this indentured box of mine,

Choosing within my soul, therein,

To grow flowers in lieu of clinging weeds.

all four years of high school live in a jose cuervo tequila box. i don't drink, and even when i did, i didn't drink tequila. before i typed out my poetry, i used to write it in the margins of my schoolwork. i have graduated and the box has moved states, and i still have not gone through the contents of it. not because i worry so much about my essays being cringe-worthy or seeing B minuses on the tops of the tests, but because i struggle to read my own handwriting - you know how some kids wrote in secret codes so that their parents couldn't read their notes? not me. i worry that my my words - whatever i thought was important enough to put in the jose cuervo tequila box - will disappear forever if i can't decode them. they say that your writing lives on long after you die, but what if no one can read it? not even the writer. when the words die, i die. 15 year-old me finally dies (the way she wanted to at the time). i spent a lot of time in college mourning lost words that were never mine to lose. it's been thousands of years and we still can't read Linear A, we have only fragments of Sappho, we don't know the way Catullus' manuscript was originally ordered because it was lost for centuries - we don't even have what we found anymore, just copies. i type what words i can remember, what things i think i wanted to say. Just copies.

Perhaps my writing is like those conversations you have at a diner at 11PM: you're at the bar top, waiting for your coffee, or eggs and bacon, and someone comes and sits next to you when you didn't really want them to. They're frumpy, with a hat on backwards, and you wonder where they came from and what made them come here so late. The pure audacity to infringe on your personal space, but you're intrigued anyway.

Perhaps conversations are like a box. For me, I go at them with kitchen scissors and try to open them up, when the job really required a knife. I can't get inside it. The tape has been carefully arranged so that is covers every crevice, every edge - the very thing keeping everything inside is what I seek to destroy. I want to know more.

Perhaps getting to know people is like unwinding a long spool of tape. It gets stuck to your fingers, and you want to peel it off, but it's there, on top of your skin and either irritating or somehow funny. You laugh, or seethe. You like them, or you don't.

Perhaps love is like a box. What's that Edgar Allan Poe story, with the beating heart? That's true love, when it's out of their body, sealed somewhere with the same tape you fought so hard to rip away. You want more, you want to get to the moment when you know what's inside and can be done with the process of peeling back the layers.

I believe that some people are unknowable. But then, maybe we all are. The person who sat next to you a the bar top is unknowable, but maybe they are a box, and it just depends on how much effort you're willing to expend, opening them up.

Pandora should have not been to blame.

For if a parent gave a child, curious in nature, an unknown, and said "You can do anything except to open this," you know that's what they'd do.

And if Yahweh gave Adam any tree to choose from but then set aside the apple as off-limits, of course Adam failed to pass along the message to Eve when overwhelmed with his new existence and the reality of endless promise in Eden.

And when we take a kitten in we don't expect for it to know the difference between right and wrong, because animals are innocent; it's our job to own up to the damage that it does.

And so when Zeus gave her the box knowing of her nature, he doomed her to fail, took advantage of her gentle curiosity and desire to uncover all of that about the world which was yet unexplained, and to share it with People, who her Brother had made, had shaped from clay, and given flame -

And Prometheus could pay the price, certainly, it seemed,

but not enough, not enough, for Zeus's pride and greed... No, he'd need to make example. That's exactly what he did. Tied Prometheus to a rock, gave the sister a gift; told her not to open the box, whatever else she did, and knowing of Pandora's nature, he knew she'd lift the lid -

- releasing all the demons and bad things into the world, all the hatred, pain and suffering, the sadness and turmoil... all to turn against Humanity, creation he'd not Blessed. In turn, People blame Pandora. A jealous god is dangerous. Envy and vengeance are what Jupiter does best. He punishes the maker, the sister and the innocently made, forever all three cursed; in one fell swoop, removes the threats to his 'magnificence,' sets his time to heroes to take down all these new threats. 'How magnanimous, how wonderful!' you'd hear the people say.

Monsters of his own making, heroes sent along to slay them, all for his own entertainment, and for pantheon'ic sway. That's how Zeus used just a box to turn the odds his way.

There I was in the Principal's office, again. It had been over 30 years since last time.

Yet, here I was, waiting, until he walked in and sat at his desk.

"How can I help you?" he asked, shuffling some papers, avoiding eye contact.

"Do you know what's unusual about me being in the Principal's office?" I asked. He didn't. "This time," I pointed out, "you're the one who's in trouble."

"How so, sir?" he asked smugly. Now his eyes met mine.

Moments earlier, I had been in a Special Ed teacher's conference about my son, whose diagnosis makes him prone to inappropriate outbursts--shouting, head-banging, and other maladaptive behaviors.

"Children like them..." she had begun. Her introduction, to whatever message she had for me, had the force of continuity with the universe, as she rubbed her third-trimester pregnant belly gently.

"Children...like them?" I said.

"My children. My class. It's mostly Down syndrome and mild spectrum. There's not much trouble from children like them."

Like them.

"Your son can't be here, disrupting my classroom."

"This is Special Ed, right?"

"Right, but there are limits."

"Your limits?"

"Reasonable limits. I'm afraid you'll have to find another place for him."

"That's why the petition?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered. "From many parents, to remove your son."

I smiled. "I see you're pregnant."

"Yes. We've waited a long time, too. Now it's so close. We're very excited. I start maternity leave next week."

"That's great."

"It is. So I hope you'll understand I'd like my last week here to be business as usual. Without the commotion and disruption."

"That would be nice. All of your children here, the children like them, so quiet and peaceful and docile, as specially babysat as only Special Ed can."

"Sarcasm?"

"No. The law. Would you like to accompany me to your Principal's office?"

"No. I'm sure you two can work out your son's removal. I have my children to deal with."

I looked at her, mustering a flat affect to contain my rage.

"Your children," I intoned. "All kept tidy and cataloged neatly in their little box." I looked at her pregnant belly again--demonstrably. "I sure hope your baby's normal."

And that's when she slapped my face hard. It was a spinal reflex.

And while what she thought she had heard was every expectant parent's paranoia--how karma's favorite blossom is irony--what I had said, in truth, was my most ardent loving wish for every expectant mother, everywhere--knowing what I know.

Even her.

Ambulance sirens straight to you again. It’s not the sounds I craved for your young ears to hear so soon.

I had a yearning for you to hear the sounds of swings creaking, slides squealing, and the kids' laughter echoing from the monkey bars.

But Your hand barely bigger than my thumb warms mine on the hospital bed. I was about to let go. I had thought you'd been fast asleep (postictal seizure state) but your fighter's grip tightened around one of my fingers. Your eyes open slowly. I smile then you smile. The machines continue their relentless beeping. A rhythm both familiar and terrifying. These four white walls became like a box we haven't been able to escape from just yet.

I’m sorry my love the children's hospital isn't the second home I dreamt of for us.  But soon this box will leave.

I begin to say, “I'll buy us ice cream afterwards. I’ll take you to the playground down the street.” I lift my head off the bed to see your response but you went back to sleeping.

And I became lost in the hum of machines. The ambulance wail still echoing in my aching heart.

Wherever you may go, there is an unspoken hierarchy.

Whether it be an elementary school or a new job, you‘ll look up or down at me.

Remember to stay between the lines of the societal requirements.

A bad day for you is an opportunity for others to help more or care less.

So tidy yourself up so the bad routines stop.

You never want to be known as that bull in the china shop.

A box. In the beginning, I was boxed in with the others. The box was oval, made of clay, and gifted to Curiosity. It was hot and suffocating and we all sat on top of each other, Greed on my right and Vice on my left. We were trapped, until the box was opened. Disease and Violence left first, travelling on the wind. Sorrow and I crept into the Earth.

I am boxed in again. This time the box takes the shape of a rectangular tool. The young babe opens me up, and out of me glows all of Curiosity's sins. We are out of the box.

Her hands were never cold.

It didn't matter the time of year, or what we were doing, or where we were.

I've long heard the term "Harlow Gold." I didn't know what it meant until Google gave me the answer, but it fit perfectly, once I saw it. It's basically a white-blonde dye job. She didn't dye; she was simply the palest blonde I ever did see.

She wore her hair in a simple ponytail, mostly. Sometimes she'd try to tease it into a shape, with curls and whirls and whatnot, but mostly, it ended up held back with a simple elastic band.

I was always careful not to let her see me laugh on those days. I think that likely kept me from being stabbed.

She used to tease me, and sometimes, she knew how to make me blush. I didn't mind, though. In the end, I knew she'd let me take her home.

They hand me a folded blue piece of 8.5 x 11 when I walk in the door. It reminds me of the church bulletins from when I was a kid. I hate places like this little Primitive Baptist snuggled up between Savannah and nothing at all.

I always find it odd when they call it a Homecoming. If this is God's house like they say, then it was never really hers. It couldn't be, because she wasn't a hypocrite. Precocious, ferocious, but not pretentious or dishonest.

I recognize guys from our shared youth. Some of them knowingly nod at me. We all loved her, in our way and in our time. We each speak to the husband; she kept no secrets, and he thanks us for coming, even if he doesn't mean it.

I admit being a little uneasy. She was always good at that, and I suppose this is her last joke at my expense. I sit, staring at the back of the man she married while a stranger leads us all in prayer.

I smile and shed a tear. I can't help but wonder if she's as comfortable in her mahogany box as she was in any of the backseats from high school. I sigh, and it slips into a quiet sob.

Her hands were never cold in the back of my old Monaco, but now it's all they'll ever be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SodT0FyebU