Boxed In

If I gave you a box with everything you’ve ever lost… What would you look for first?

They said
“If I gave you a box with everything you’ve ever lost…”
What would you look for first?

I laughed.
Not because it’s funny
But because I’ve already lived the punchline.
Already opened wounds without a hinge,
Already unpacked memories with no return policy.

See, the first thing I lost
wasn't a watch or a wallet.
It was my right to choose.
It was control.
It was boyhood,
handed over to hands that had no business holding me.

Thirteen.
And they called it “growing up,”
but it felt like being buried alive in my own skin.
My body learned the choreography of fear
before I even knew the name of the song.
I didn’t lose my innocence.
It was stripped,
scraped,
and then blamed on me.
Because where I’m from
A boy who cries is soft.
A boy who breaks is weak.
And a boy who’s been broken?
He better never speak.

We are taught that silence is masculine.
That pain must be swallowed whole.
Toxic masculinity isn’t just common
It’s currency.
And I grew up bankrupt,
trying to pay for therapy with prayer and pride.

Next?
I lost me.
Not all at once, no.
Piece by piece.
Mental health didn’t knock.
It invaded,
moved the furniture around in my head,
shut off the lights,
and whispered,
“You’re cursed.”
Because that’s what they say, right?
That sadness is witchcraft.
That depression is laziness.
That healing is a weakness
and manhood means pretending.

I wore a smile like body armor.
But every mirror showed a man fading
even as the world kept calling me strong.

And then came Moyo.
Moyo, the chaos and calm in the same breath.
Our love?
Toxic.
Tangled.
Real.
You brought purpose like a lighthouse does to ships
even if we still crashed against the rocks.
You held my broken,
and I held yours.
It wasn’t right,
but it was love.
And I won't rewrite that truth just to make the memory easier.

So yeah
Give me that box.
Let me open it with calloused hands
and eyes that have seen too much.
Let me find that thirteen-year-old boy
and hold him,
not as a victim,
but as a survivor.

Let me gather the man I lost in the fog,
rebuild him from memory and madness.
And when I see Moyo’s face,
I won’t cry
I’ll nod.
Say, “You mattered. Even in the mess.”

Because this box?
It’s not a grave.
It’s a mirror.
And when I look in
I don’t just see what I lost.
I see what I refused to let stay gone.

I see me.

Still standing.
Still speaking.
Still here.
A man who remembers
and refuses to forget.