Our boxes

I sat in my box and waited.

And the sun rose and the sun set and no one came, but they said they would, so I waited.

And the rain poured, and the fires burned, and the people screamed, but no one came, so I waited.

I paced its walls, and tallied the days, and the people passed, in joy and sorrow. Their sobs, their laughter ricocheted off the walls, the echoes of pain, the residue of love, but they didn’t come, so I waited.

And I glimpsed their shadows and smelled their breath, and felt the secondhand truth of eavesdropped words, but I didn’t see their faces, and I didn’t know their hearts, and I couldn’t read their eyes.

Alone in the dark, all I knew was myself, and my pain, and my fear, and my hope, and I waited.

Then.

I opened the door.