Heartache Box

Some things are better off forgotten, lest they become a perpetual mental torment. Heartache. Frightening Things. Bad Things You've Seen. All The Bad Things You've Done. But they rise to the surface again and again, over and over, like great big whales coming up for air. They won't leave you alone. They won't let you sleep.

This is what I do.

I imagine a box. Maybe a cardboard shoe box, or perhaps an ornate wooden chest. I picture it just sitting there, in the big white space of my mind. And every time those torturous thoughts rise up I imagine snatching them from my mind as one would rip down a poster from a wall. I open the box, throw the thought inside and then slam it shut. Sometimes I put the box behind a locked door. Sometimes I pick it up and drop-kick it over the invisible goalposts of infinity. And then the thought is gone, and I think about something else, immediately. If, of course, the thought happens to come back, I'll just repeat it all over again, until it's gone. 

I started off with one box. It was a heartbreak box. I wrote his name on it. Now I have several, names or titles scrawled on in marker or carved into wood. They sit together in silence in the recesses of my mind. Sometimes I'll open one up and revel in bitter sweet memories. Sometimes I'll want to burn one entirely, for it's full to the brim with pain. But I never do.

Most of the boxes are dusty. But one remains clean because I open it so often, and shut it again so frequently. I've taken it from the shelf and put it back again, over and over. I can never leave it be. I have locked it away so many times. But I always bring it back.

I should burn it. But I never could.