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Pandora's Box

Posted May 29, 2026 · 30 lines · 5 critiques

You are my Pandora’s Box.

In my mind I am five again, sitting beside you

and wondering at your face. I know nothing

of the man that you are, only that you are my father

and that I am happy to be near you.

I am forty and my mother tells me how

every day would start in a bottle.

My five and forty selves can’t imagine this

is you. My five and forty selves want something more

from this icon you have become. This image

of a man in his prime, strong and undeniable, defined

by planes and angles, the shape of your face

imprinted on mine.

I am five and you are holding my hand within your own.

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I am forty and you are gone, your hands mirrored

in mine.

You are the box I should not open, but can not help myself

from visiting time and time again. I lift the lid once,

twice, three times - ritualistically. I learn

how you were beaten as a child. How your own intellect

held you prisoner. How the pressure for perfection

held you in its grip and demanded more than you

could give. How by the time you were my father

you were already broken, like the fragile wings

of all the things that flew out of that box

so long ago. And like Pandora, I shake that box

only to find myself at the bottom, the shred of hope

you held pressed to your heart.

-revised LAP 05/29/26-

Ashes’s timeline

May 2026
31 Sun

Received a critique
on Pandora's Box from @Tink
"I get that! I wonder if there is a better way to get that point across, so that that memory comes across clearer, maybe a line like "...at your face. trying to see through the veil exposing the real you..." maybe. It ma…"
31 Sun

Received a critique
on Pandora's Box from @Tink
"I get that! I wonder if there is a better way to get that point across, so that that memory comes across clearer, maybe a line like "...at your face. trying to see through the veil exposing the real you..." maybe. It ma…"
30 Sat

Received a critique
on Pandora's Box from @Tink
"Hello, I'm Tink. I enjoyed the read. Thank you for sharing. The one place where I had pause was the use of the line "wondering at your face". In my mind wondering about your face would have made more sense. "at" throws…"
29 Fri

Critiqued
"leafy dapples" by @crypticbard
"I'm with Geezer. I can imagine looking upinto this canopy, and hush falling all around as in slow motion bits and pieces drift to the ground with light catching on them. Almost a slow-motion capture in a movie. I feel f…"
29 Fri

First critique offered
on "leafy dapples" by @crypticbard
29 Fri

First publication
Pandora's Box
29 Fri

Posted a poem
Pandora's Box
"You are my Pandora’s Box."
Open thread 30 lines
27 Wed

Joined Neopoet
Membership begins

First poem published 2 days later.

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