Gift-wrapped

I have swallowed a jar of your darkness.
It wriggles around inside me like jellied eels.

I'm unpacking a gold box you sent bursting
with panic attacks that look like Mexican jumping beans.

There's a set of clenched knives delicately wrapped
in red silk. A miniature cactus whose hot pink petals unfurl

in a fist full of thorns. Raspberry cupcakes frosted
with shards of glittered glass. A wooden maze

of razor minotaurs, where I spend all day hunting
for your lost candy heart.

In the middle of my living room floor, knee deep
in satin ribbon and crushed tissue paper,

I draw your sharpness from my chest.
Next time, I'll scribble 'return to sender'.

Lucy Whitehead writes haiku and poetry. Her haiku have been published widely in various international journals and anthologies, and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Barren Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Burning House Press, Mookychick Magazine, and Twist in Time Literary Magazine. Her Twitter handle is @blueirispoetry.