cargo

She was a parcel marked fragile

beautifully packaged and sealed

filled to bursting with odd debris

life’s flotsam and jetsam stuffed

alongside passions, bleak thoughts

airtight, dreams held imprisoned

with shards of past harsh bastards

and pockets of self-doubt, worries.

She was marked fragile and arrived

I hold this receptacle of negativity,

begin tenderly to pick apart edges

pluck harsh content from dark insides

and place, so gently, replace the bad

with mirrors reflected and vivid lights

each day, I take away a little more rot

so that she will have futures unbroken.