He is faced with a complicated “Safe” that has a seven-digit combination. Sensitive. If the wrong code is entered, he knows the safe will be locked forever, denying him access. Locked inside, there is a fragile heart.

This specific heart is a prospect. He needs access. He desires to make her his wife.

He wonders, on many days, whether this is just his imagination—a one-sided telephone call. Did he dial the correct digits? Then, finally, a woman picks up, listening. He hears her breathing but never hears a word.

“Just Friends.” He respects this. He knows the reasons. But his uncontrollable feelings and emotions torture him every day and night that passes. Does she feel the same and hide it? He inadvertently exposed his feelings prematurely. He can’t unring the bell. It’s a new year.

Because of the situation and circumstances, he merges his visions and dreams into poems.

She claimed she never read them, even though she assured him she would. “Are you dependable, or just plain forgetful?” These poems are the equivalent of his heart. “Do you want it?” Passive or indifferent? Maybe she is telling him, “She does not.”

He now feels naked and vulnerable. He couldn’t help himself.

Every time he sees her or comes around her, his tongue takes on a mind of its own, exposing things he thought he had under lock and key, hidden in his soul.

He feels like a fool for opening his own safe too soon—something he swore never to do for another woman, anew.

Sad sometimes, so hurt on most days. Feeling butterflies in his stomach, his heart swelled, so hard to breathe. Anxious. Anxiety.

“Is she playing with my emotions on purpose, or is this just a test?” “If a test, then why are the answers so hard to decipher?”

He raises his hand, a student in her classroom. “Teacher, what is the subject matter of your examination?” But her responses are equally mysterious and confusing.

Is he reading her correctly? So many red flags are beginning to pop up. Should he see them for what they are and walk away?

“Knock, Knock!” Or listen to his instincts and stay?

Should he cut his losses now, before his emotions get knee-deep in quicksand, never to escape it? Or is he already trapped in the riptide, unable to swim back to the land from the sea?

“Time will tell.”

Should he wait a little while longer in hopes of cracking the combination?

So many questions. “Why the games?” The heart is nothing to play with. It sustains life. Stop beating, and the body dies. He believes this to be true. Hence, when it comes to her heart, he would never play with it.

She once said she trusted him over others, but her words seem to contrast her actions.

“Baby, your heart, emotions, and feelings are still locked away.” “How many digits have I entered in correctly so far?” “How many more codes do I need to access your whole heart, locked up inside your safe of __S-E-V-E-N__ Digit Combinations?”

By Nelly Vee