Preserved

I found the yearbook in a box,

opened it and picked the locks

of eighteen years, and there it was—

the handwriting, the blue ink, the cause

of something that still hasn't healed,

a wound that was never sealed,

a sentence written to be funny

but it left me feeling crummy.

I was seventeen, thought they were my friend,

didn't know that friendship could end

with words carved into paper,

meant as a joke, but sharper.

The date is printed right there,

2003, beyond repair,

a proof of the day I learned

that kindness could be turned

into something else, something cruel,

something that taught me the rule:

that people will smile and then write

things designed to hurt, to bite.

I should have thrown this away,

should have thrown it away that day,

but instead I've carried it through

every version of the new me I pursue.

Some things, once they're written down,

can't be unwritten, can't be brown

over with time or distance or grace—

they stay exactly in their place,

waiting in a box for the year

you're weak enough to open it, to hear

the voice of someone you thought was kind,

the words you can't unwind.