Surprise Paper Bag

Lately, my mirror looks different.  That is, of course, because I look different.  I feel different and differently.

It's cheesy, but I'll say it.  I am that brave, after all.  And certainly that much of a softie.  I began metamorphosing about 15 months ago.

I saw a boyish bright face through the window of a car pulling up to me.  Amid the shadow and light polka dots provided by the overhanging tree.  On the way to a movie theatre out of town, out of the places I usually found myself.

But that's just it.  The places I were, I couldn't find myself.  I was a paper bag marked Surprise! stapled, taped, on the shelf of a 25 cent store.  Marked girl with a lackadaisical ribbon, but even that was debatable.  What's it cost to break inside? What would I find? Would I be a cheap squirt gun or a dolly with lopsided eyes?

Shy he found beautiful and loneliness and hiddeness, too.  Disney couldn't write a sweeter love story nor Austen one more true.  Our first date he held me, he held me the first day of my life.  And kissed my hair, his kisses kitty cat soft.  His lips warm as sugar cream pie.

The little girl in daddy's T-shirt and boys jeans stood gazing at the Surprise paper bag.  A yo-yo, a paddle ball, a penny whistle she'd lose in the sandbox.  What was she? And the sad part: she didn't know and she was twenty-one.

She'd been kissed but she never kissed, been caught but never caught, raised but never raised, told but she never told, loved, maybe, but never loved.

"Me either, me either."

Glow-in-the-dark stars.

"You're beautiful and I love you."

Pearl studded hair bow.

"You're you and I want to be with you."

Gold foil glittering glue

"It's all in there and I want to be in there, too."

And a pinwheel made of spoons.

I pulled out something new little by little and stashed the rest away, there's time to wait while I play with these few things.  I write stories at bedtime, drink cherry soda in the meantime, and learn not to hold it in when I want to kiss him.