Take the Box by Amy Winehouse

Hey y’all, I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. I finally threw out my bed and built the new one all by myself. (I probably sound like a kid proud of a macaroni drawing but I don’t care cause that shit was hard. N if you don’t give me props for doing it alone then I’ll give myself props). But during that time I started to write a piece aloud. Maybe actively trying to work through any feelings that were coming up for me. But I like the piece that morphed. I am grateful for these changes I’m preparing for, and the changes happening currently within me. Growing up I was always afraid of change. I kept everything, I needed everyone to stay, I was incredibly fixated on holding onto what I could and that never worked. So I still struggle to accept change, like anybody does, but the way I see it is you can change or you can die—because if you’re not growing or changing that means you’re dead. So I’m trying to ease the learning curve of change by learning to understand who I am when I’m afraid of change, or noticing when I’m rotting and need a change. (Growth baybee) I hope you enjoy this piece.

An autopsy of the last giving tree

Wooden skeletons sit on every side of me.

I am the heart it seems.

Splintered exit wounds as the nails go in circles,

I take apart the bed I’ve made for myself. 

Layer by layer 

Remembering the days I made the dents in the wood 

And the summers I wrote and crossed out lovers names in symmetric oak.

I always believed in carving a lovers name in wood.

It gives the love a taste. 

Carving my affection into another’s work.

And admiring the faces that surface. 

Taking the sweetness from their name and saving it for a rainy day. 

I think of what I did in this bed. 

I think of all the dreams it held.

And the ones that fell under the bed when I was in a rush. 

That one time. 

All the shock it absorbed. 

The wood showed me how to breathe and be trimmed at the same time. 

The giving tree. 

Gave. It all. 

Over and over. 

And called it love. 

When a lover asks for their name on me.

I remember the stump at the end.

Saying it’s okay their lover let them whittle away

Before a blank page.

Left them to whisper in another branch’s ear 

How they believed the end of love was just as beautiful as the beginning. 

But it never was. 

As I take, a part the wood 

It flails out of place 

Wood is blessed with memory but I forget what they are when the nails finally give.

I don’t mean to forget who I am when I give.

I just meant to show the universe I tried.

Like the wood. 

I gave. 

I like the wood. 

Under pressure. 

Unlike this wood. 

I won’t be undone.

thanks y’all