December 5th Closure

The room has walls lined with wallpaper that is the color of dried blood-
dark rust
It is the afternoon
There are cream lace curtains lining the window panes
The sun illuminates the room, undimmed even with layers of dust coating the glass,
making the lace indecipherable against the luminance

There is a desk, solid and unremarkable
White papers are strewn on the floor,
coated with black cursive from header to footer
They are catalogs of my thoughts-
of my entrapment

They are picked up one-by-one
and straightened against the desktop
A box appears
Much like a cardboard box you might pack your office items into,
it has holes in two sides to carry with ease
It is made of smooth, light brown hardwood, light in weight, with a flat lid

The straightened papers are placed inside
and the lid attaches, securing them
The box is picked up and carried down the hallway
Black-heeled boots click evenly against the white tile floor,
like the one in "Girl, Interrupted"

The black-heeled boots head out the door and dig into the grass and dirt
Fast in pace, they are soon caked in mud
The box is brought to the edge of the property
There is a forest of bare trees, thick and desolate
It is a graveyard where all of the headstones are flat-
eaten by the earth, and scathed by abandonment

My writing is heavy and must be relinquished
The wood smoothed to perfection,
sits against stones and dead leaves and twigs and moss and earth crawlers
Decomposition starts instantaneously and it sinks deep into the ground quickly-
too quickly-
is it not time to let go?

The black-heeled boots make their way back to the white-tiled hallway
Paced clicks echo
They escape back to the paperless room
where all of the blood cells coating the wallpaper have desiccated and died
And there are no more wooden boxes to complete tabulation