E Is for Etruscan, E is for Excavation

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I hold a mirror in my left hand, and I lift my veil with my right. I wear my best white dress and my finest jewelry, and I lie in wait. Am I Etruscan or Miss Havisham? Am I living or is E for Effigy, as well as Etruscan?

(Someone broke my heart, all right, and I still have the wedding dress I didn't wear. Maybe Raleigh will want to see it some day, feel its velvet bodice and finger the layers of its tulle skirt. I would have been a dahlia, a white dahlia, in that dress.

Someone else salved my heart and saved me and bought me the jewelry I wear and the mirror I hold and the bed on which I recline and the lace dress I will wear in the spring, and the MAC on which I type. And then he left me, too, but not by choice.

I have to believe it's not by choice Harvey died. I have to believe it's by choice that I live. I don't want to live some days--and maybe this is one of them--but I can't do that to my children, to my parents, to my friends, scattered as they are).

Who knows the Etruscans? Who knows Miss Havisham's heart? Who knows mine?

Maybe E is for Excavation. Someone unearthed that sarcophagus on which the beautiful woman displays her vanity. I had to dig out my car this morning from many inches of snow, and I have to dig out of depression today, too. I am so damned lonely. Why? Why Not? I just pulled these interrogatives from a bag of candy, red-letter words on chalky pastel backgrounds.

Dig deeply into your Valentine candies and see if you find Lonely, Lonely, Lonely on any of those conversation hearts. See if you find Heartbreak, the way I did.