Handle With Care

Sometimes I try to package sadness

With familiar paper and a crinkled bow

To let you know I thought of you.

Sometimes I try to stay your tears

Until you have my shoulder

Or until you collapse into my chest.

I set my words in bubble wrap

Carefully choosing fragile phrases

For an even more delicate heart.

Yet it’s never enough,

Not for the choking breathes

I can hear from the other room

When you don’t think I’m listening.

I try to package sadness in familiarity,

Because I always am.