nostalgia in the dark
by everythingversusnothing
my mind is cluttered in the way
my room was cluttered at home
in the upstairs drafty guest room
of my family's house,
small and bright in morning and memory
big and dark in night and dreamings;
dirty laundry that once lay strewn
over futon and desk
(or flowed over from rifled-through drawers
or across the floor, banished there in a fit of frustration
when looking for some lost found thing)
now lies over sticky dark brain parts
covering, protecting, cluttering;
the moldy cups of tea that once lined windowsill and dresser top
now lounge sideways, tipped and wet
spilling remnants of calm that have since grown sour
across a cognitive carpet that soaks them up, thirsty;
pens and paper, pastels and watercolor,
charcoal and graphite and brushes and shavings
sketchbooks and journals with pages ripped out
crumpled and thrown towards the trash can in the corner
(whose rim has long been set ajar
by tissues and bandaids and cellar tape)
all these things now wait in new corners
(different corners
mind corners)
and scatter every drawer of thought,
a familiar symbol of disorganized beauty,
of the genius that whispered secretless secrets into gifted hope chests,
of the artist whose tears breathed rainbow ribbons
down innocent cheeks
in the dark.
my mind is cluttered
and it is full
of the same things that have always lived there
even though
i now live elsewhere
and have since learned to tie my shoes
without much thought.