by Jules Cunningham (’14)

I’ve tucked me into a drawer now
Empty harmonica cases only good for holding cigarettes
New pens
A ceramic ocarina that hits concert Ab and three-quarters
a metronome
muscle tape
a watch out of power for at least 5 years
2 broken notebooks
god knows how much loose change
I’ve tucked me into a drawer
so I can walk away for a while
pretend I’m made of pizza dough
an iphone
some stylish leather jacket
maybe even a saxophone or two
a few books of Classical literature
and an instruction manual
rather than 100 poetry and wicca and fantasy and comic books that I’ve kept and sold and bought again cause I couldn’t bear to see them running off with another lover
rather than an old typewriter
and a smelly blue bandanna
and if I keep me
locked up in a drawer
I can look around my room
and sooner or later I’ll see someone else littered across the carpet
someone stronger and clean-shaven and worth at least 100 20s
rather than
12 quarters
32 dimes
45 nickles
and 187 pennies
Someone who doesn’t find a vodka bottle
years old in his hiking gear
and if he does
he certainly doesn’t cry about it
and if I close my eyes
and don’t think about the me locked in the drawer
where no one can see
and where no one will look
I can open my eyes
believing that strong someone is me