Things In A Box Poem by Laura Grace

Laura Grace is a Mass Communications Major, avid gardener, poetry writer, photographer, and wife & mother of two daughters and a pet bird.

THINGS IN A BOX , Poem

My stepfather said once that

she keeps everything because

she grew up with nothing...

he was wise, but after his demise

things, and things kept piling up

walls of useless old boxes

created shadows that kept all the light

from coming in, mountains

of old photographs yellowed and wilted

with images of forgotten memories

of a life that was never lived,

she didn’t know what she was searching for

so she kept everything she found

to fill her soul with what she never had,

but those things you can’t touch...

she kept looking for answers

without asking the right questions,

she searched in all the wrong places

trash and clutter filled the spaces

of her broken heart, but with emptiness

to look inside herself no one taught her

longing for more, she kept more boxes

of promises that were never kept,

she had nothing…

but thought she could have everything

In boxes and boxes

that turned out to be empty

looking for something that she couldn’t see

found only in the calm of looking within,

she was a prisoner of her own fixation

she traded the living for the inanimation

rather to give, she became a master

at keeping

making her poorer instead of enriching her,

things in a box were never enough

to fulfill her life, but she didn’t know…

by Laura Grace