The Sun Kept in a Yellow Box

I have learned that the city does not break you all at once; it only dims your windows, one season at a time. For months I wore grey like a shroud, walking through rain that never ended, keeping the name of my ex-lover folded in my chest like a letter I was too proud to open.

Then he came home with this yellow thing, draped over his arm as if it were a small sun he had stolen from a July afternoon. He said nothing. He only watched the light on the glass and asked me to stand where the morning could find me. And there I was, in fabric patterned with flowers that never wilted, the tiny tie at my waist knotted like a secret I finally let go.

He touched my ribs, not to possess but to remember; his fingers traced the curve of my waist as though reading an inscription only time had written. I smiled then, and the smile was not for him, it was for the girl I had buried under years of quiet grief. The window held green beyond it, blurred and breathing, and for one suspended breath the past stopped haunting me.

I understand now that healing is not a loud event. It is a yellow bikini left on a chair, a hand resting on bare skin with no agenda, a smile that returns to your face like light returning to an empty room. We are all just fragments of time trying to be warm again; and sometimes love is nothing more than someone willing to keep the sun safe in a small box, until you are ready to wear it.

Editor: Antique Box