Unwrapped copyright 1987 by Tracy Marks I feel such an overwhelming desire to wrap up each of my feelings in a golden wrapper, separate from the rest, and tie it with a big green bow. How clean and ordered I would have appeared if I had told you how much I wanted you without having to protect my self-esteem, or if I had set the limits of what I could tolerate without asking at the same time to hold you close as I pushed you away. What an illusion of completeness I would have projected; what an image of self-containment I would have revealed to you. Instead, I poured out a messy mixture of feelings – hurt and desire, anger and hunger, hatred and love, pride and humiliation, unable to separate one from the other, to assert one without the other demanding to be heard. Yet all the while the orderly package-wrapper inside me cried out, "OH, what a mess you are making! You've glued all your packages together and put on the wrong name tags and clashed the paper color with the ribbon color and failed to fold your corners properly...." "But does it matter?" I the gift-giver reply. "My gifts are myself – my honesty and openness. I can only give them unwrapped."

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