Empty Things

You crack an egg, the yoke slides out.  The egg is just a shell.  Like broken promises and words someone didn’t mean.  You collect sea shells at the beach.  Lovely little empty things.  You say you’ll want them to remember the day by later.  But they’re not the waves or the sun or the sand or the way you smiled and you can’t hear the ocean in them or the words that weren’t empty then. 

You collected shells at the beach on Christmas too.  You still keep them, still remember.  And that’s why you know better than to cry too hard or love too much.  It’s all the same.  The way things break.  The eggs you make to show you care, the way the yoke slides out and the way you hold the shell in your hand.  It’s all the same—the promises, the words, the way you collect memories like shells: lovely little empty things.  Waves break against the rocks at the beach and you collect sea shells.  You break against hard things.  And you collect the shells of love and promises because you’ll want to remember anyways.