Cardboard box

Trapped in this cardboard box of distress,

my walls crashing down.
So much noise surrounds me.
I strain through the voices;
longing, hoping, waiting
to hear yours.

Will you show up tonight?
Will you stay with me--
just stay with me until
the darkness fades--
I'm so afraid when there's no light--
So deceived by the glazed-over
reflections of black-lights.
Sometimes I think I hear you,
but soon my doubts
retake control of my mind.

I live the life of a mime--
no one sees how I feel.
They pass me by like
an unknown artist's painting--
nothing out of the ordinary.
I wait for one who will call me
out of this land of the dead.

I long to be priceless--
Irreplaceable by another clay vessel.
Not just a Monet or Da Vinci,
but truly unique--
A masterpiece alive in its own--
unfinished, ever-changing, but
marked with a plan
whose lines end in perfection.