#drawer
I keep my poems about you in my drawer.
For, my feelings are stitched into pieces
as delicate as the fabrics I adorn.
Should I free them from the wooden box?
It’s easier to tuck my written infatuations between my worn socks.
Should I cover them up like clothes I use
to cloak my skin?
Tends to be it’s scarier to bare your soul
than your flesh.
So I hide secret love letters
among cheaply sown mesh—
long sleeves, cropped tank tops,
skirts, and pants;
All the clothing one could think up.
Too scared to seem foolish,
but I truly am head over heels.
Thus, I stay on the brink of becoming bold enough to tell you all that I feel,
or playing it cool;
and keep pushing all that stuff down deep in
my dresser.
Apr 5
Apr 5, 2026 at 12:17 PM UTC
In my desk drawer
are broken things,
bits of what were,
hopes of what could be.
It’s a journal without words
where a red paper clip
holds nothing together,
and a tape measure
never reached the length
of a bookshelf.
Tucked in a corner
is a faded love letter from my husband,
a few words about roses, and
how beautiful I was at seventeen.
Sticky notes lay scattered
in confetti colors of green,
pink, yellow, and blue
waiting for ink instead
of just taking up space.
I should clean it out…
send most of it to a waste basket,
but not every treasure box holds gold.
Mine is a cluttered drawer
filled with broken things, the
archaeological site of a dreamer
with a catalogue of stories to tell.
Aug 11, 2025
Aug 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM UTC
•*For Thyreez,
because she aspires*•
<>
most of us, no,
almost all of us,
collectors, of those little things,
real, substantive,
kept in that drawer,
reminders of collected moments,
of places people, successes, tragedies,
lumped together because,
just because
they constitute the pinpricks,
the meddles, safety pins, needles
of our lives, some treasures,
and a few collectibles of
black trimmed saddies
I have such a drawer,
admixture of single cufflinks, spare buttons,
Aaa batteries that might still work,
expired credit cards, charging cords for
devices long ago discarded,
a whole class of items I call
you never know when
some slides, pics from prehistoric times
when we never dreamed of magic phones
as life’s mini storage units
even I had
a lipstick kiss napkin,
just in case, when was required a
need a brevity taste of
a sad time-in-‘n-out
and back again
to feel human
but the mission critical
little things
do not fit in a drawer,
for they are the action’s & visions
we seize and keep in shadowy unseen
but inserted
grey cells
the taste, aroma, of that first cup of coffee
made by whoever was up first,
brought and placed on the nightstand
with a nudge, that failing, a very wet
kiss and a foot-beneath-blanket-squeeze,
the feel~touch of a particular locket,
the never-to be-removed-ever,
till it was
placed perhaps in someone else’s
drawer, shoebox, attic, or lost
in a ‘can’t be foundering place’
we probably have all three;
the drawer, the memory triggers,
the lost items that cannot be
lost, or forgot nor found
and I think and add all these,
I realize that this script
is
one such of the places,
where we put things,
we might need someday,
or maybe never but,
•you never know when!•
Jan 4, 2025
Jan 4, 2025 at 8:18 AM UTC
A dark and stormy day
Stone-walled house and creaky floorboards
Rain tapping all the windows, streaking them,
As the windows shudder in their housings
A high, keening wind
Clap of thunder and a drawer being opened
The cutlery inside rattling
As the drawer comes to rest
A roving and admiring eye
So wet, reflecting the dull silver sheen
Sizing up the pain within
And the size of the blade to release it
A lightning bolt outside the window
Causes him to look up, through the pelting rain
At his own reflection, to the dark hair
And those sad, sad eyes
He tilts his head a little, wondering
Just how good a scar would look
To beautify what is the exact opposite
And decides, for the time being, against it
The front door bangs open,
Footsteps in the hall
Resisting that encompassing impulse,
He drops the blade, the butcher knife, back in
The drawer
"You need any help, Mother?"
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 3:26 AM UTC
I am sharp and dreaded
Blood is dripping from me
Not my blood, no
Someone else's blood
They use me for stabbing.
I am sharp and hidden
Under her pillow
Like a gun
Constantly firing
Keeping her from sleeping.
I am sharp and I like it
Out of her reach
Safely kept in your kitchen drawer
Waiting for you to come home
To slice her open again
I am yours and I am vindictive.
I am sharp and I am your words.
F.Z.N
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
your old socks haunt me
as they linger in my drawer
Touching all my innocent matched pairs.
you had slipped them to me
one frosty night when the cold nipped at my toes
An act of a gentleman.
but now what am i to do?
you're gone, but your socks remain
Each opening of my drawer kindles the coldness I feel.
you and your socks betrayed me
none of you comfort me anymore
But at least the socks decided to stay.
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC