Ode to My Therapist’s Kleenex Box

Today’s prompt was interesting…write an ode to an inanimate object. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was my therapist’s Kleenex box. 💁🏻‍♀️ So I just went with it. This poem is conveniently based on my last therapy session, in which I cried so hard, I needed a Gatorade afterward. Isn’t healing FUN?! 😑

Ode To My Therapist’s Kleenex Box

I come in and take off my shoes;
I’m comfortable here.
I sit on the floor with a pillow in my lap,
my hands already shaking,
tears welling up in my tired eyes
that have suddenly lost the ability to look up.
I notice the heart-shaped pattern
on the rug, where hearts spill out every day
and I wonder if that’s on purpose.
I study the grain of the wooden legs
of the chair that sits
empty, as she joins me on the floor.

I feel my chest collapse
into itself, as if
collapsing is what it’s accustomed to,
what it’s meant to do.
I will my mouth to open
but the words catch on the barbed wire in my throat,
cutting them to pieces
I’m not sure can be sewn back together
in this short hour.

Her deep breath reminds me
these lungs need
this heavy air that hangs around
the ache in my head
that tells me,
Take a breath.
You’re safe here.

I close my eyes and
open my mouth to speak,
but my breath loses its fire
in my waterlogged chest
where all the uncried tears are kept.

The dense silence is interrupted
by a voice, saying,
Hey, you’re safe here.

I don’t even know I’m crying
until my body shakes
violently from the inside,
shaking the trauma loose,
sending the pain into my bloodstream
until I feel it all,
stabbing, like an army of sharpened knives,
shivering down my spine,
spilling out of my mouth,
slicing through the years
of wiping away tears with my shame.
Shame, in the shape of my sleeve,
because if I don’t cry the tears,
maybe they’ll disappear.
If I don’t cry the tears,
maybe it was never real
Maybe it was never real?
Maybe it was never real?
And again, and again, and again…

She gently pushes a Kleenex box
into my tremble,
bringing me back to the floor
with the heart-patterned rug
and the hot tears streaming
down my tight-lipped face.
I open my eyes to see
A shaky hand – my own –
reaching for a tissue
to capture the tears,
to hold the hand
of the memory as it
slides down my cheekbones,
no longer alone.

This
is more than a Kleenex.
This is a reminder that
I am here.
I am here.
Even when here
is the hardest place to stay –
in this world,
where I can never outrun
my own demons.
This Kleenex says,
It was real.
I am real.
I am here.

I open my mouth and say,
It was real.