To Write Again

Sleek and glossy, like an expensive paint job on a car that will only be taken out of its dimly lit garage once a year, the tower of drawers stands in front of me. It makes me nervous, the nervous you feel walking into your parent’s bedroom as a child, the void between welcome and permission.

They are clean aside from a single smudge, an oily smear of a finger print as old as the memories contained in the metal box. I question when the last time maintenance has been done, finding myself alone.

There is a deep choking breath one takes when they are overwhelmed, too afraid to confront what is in front of them. I take one as I set my eyes aside, down at my hands that clasp around something for comfort. Two small items find themselves wrapped around the zipper of my jacket, the one with deep pockets to the inside and a collar that keeps finding itself stuck up around my neck. A small cotter pin and a brass colored robin hood pendant from the 90s jingle around my finger tips for a moment.

I feel my boots on the earth below as I look up, not at the box, not quite yet. I look to the sky first, my neck pinching to remind me of the years. It’s grey and blue, a sad sight if not for the rays of light cast upon it, giving it a cool warmth one cannot truly understand before looking upon it. Like a warm overcast morning in the summer that forces that hot heavy air into your lungs.

Oak and pine, they grow high, their roots holding the earth below me together, they create a foundation, ancient, one only I can cut down. The ground is muddy, yet hard, a slippery slime covered rock pulled out of a stream by the curiosity of a child, a curiosity they regretted in the moment.

The scent washes over me as I take my gaze back up to the tower of black steel, cabinet pilled upon cabinet. The smell of cinnamon, the balls my mother kept in a small dish on the stove in that first house, followed by the nothing of washed gear prepared for the forest. The scent of vanilla and sandalwood, good soaps, sweat and perfume bombard me as my fingers find purchase on the handle of the bottom drawer.

It is empty, the remaining drawers finding their way open like a flock of birds taking flight in layers, rolling open on their own, well oiled and ready to be used. I stand for a moment, glancing around as if expecting something more, and there is nothing.

The next breath I take is not constricted or nervous, it’s the kind that stretches your lungs out, the kind you can feel in your spine. The kind of breath that clears your mind long enough to look around, the one that turns your head behind you for a moment.

Piles of papers, some in bundles, many in small paperclipped stacks worth a few moments of reading, and a thousand others strewn about, mixed in, flapping around. They go on for so long, more than one can read in a lifetime, but I have already read all of them. I want to pick them up, to shove them into these empty drawers and keep them, to hang onto them and never forget.

Watching the papers flutter off into the distance, through the trees, and away from me breaks my heart. I will remember all the words scribbled upon them, but I have no need anymore, I have plenty of room to write again.