Crayola Choises

He opened the box with tiny reverence,  

a gasp that felt like fireworks, soft.  

Eyes wide, mapping the rainbow inside,  

the crayons lay like secrets waiting, still.  

Then—suddenly—chaos, intentional and free.  

He tipped the box, let colors tumble,  

their waxy bodies colliding onto the floor.  

My breath held its tongue, judgment paused.  

A snap echoed with tinny innocence—  

his hands breaking a blue crayon in half.  

"Uh-oh!" he said, feigning surprise,  

as if the cause had been invisible,  

as if choice were something distant, distant.  

He painted the world anyway,  

scribbled joy into the spaces between  

what was whole and what wasn’t.  

Sometimes breaking with purpose, then stopping,  

learning to leave the crayons whole,  

but not always, not perfectly.  

I watched him wield his power over color,  

noticing: not once, did he blame the break.  

And in his lesson, I saw ours:  

How we hold this life like fragile wax,  

deciding what will shatter, what will stay,  

choosing again to learn, or to love.