Jar Love

            Her jar of pink love crashed, suddenly, to the ground and to her surprise he walked away, leaving the mess right there in front of her. What type of woman is she if she keeps her love in a jar? The sandy ground was soaking her pink love and unfortunately she didn’t have a cloth to save what little pink drops were left.

            The jar didn’t make a sound when it collided with the ground. What surprised, or scared her more was that he caused the sudden shift in her body, thus causing the silent, unexpected crash of her love jar.

            She is unaware of it until he looks down and says, “Well, I’m not going to clean that up.” At that moment, she too looks down wondering what needs to be cleaned up and in a foolish stupor sees her own love, fading from pink to white, down at her bare feet. Afraid to move amongst the shattered glass, she watches as he walks around her, down the street, and away.

            “Hey!” she calls out. “You can’t leave me soaking in my fallen love. This was supposed to be for you. Don’t walk away from me and leave me amongst this glass and love.”

            He chooses not to acknowledge her for he keeps on walking, leaving her to feel like a fool. What woman jars up her love and thinks it’s pink inside? Shouldn’t love flow free and red inside a body? What woman needs a man to make her notice that her love is not inside of her anymore, but in fact being soaked up by the dry ground at her bare feet? What woman is she now?

            The pain she feels as she watches him disappear is worse than what she feels when she finally does move amongst the shattered glass with her bare feet. There is so much glass. In fact, to keep from feeling the pain of loneliness, she falls straight down to her knees.

            Glass shards pierce her skin. And instead of using her skirt to soak up the little drops of white love left she uses her fingers to collect the shattered glass into the palm of her left hand. Glass gets stuck under her nails and she begins to bleed. There are millions of glass particles mixing with the sand and dirt. She spends years picking up each and every single one.

            And what happened to the love? She let that go; let it get soaked up into the dry ground. That was something she couldn’t touch and hold onto. But glass! Glass was tangible just like him. At least she could look at the bloody glass pieces in her left palm and say, “You held my love for him. You held my love for him. You held my love for him…”

by Marlena Elmore © 2011