top drawer

"why don't you write something happy?" she asked.
"what's with this obsession with happiness?" i replied.
"i don't know. because it feels good to be happy. people like happy, they like reading things that make them smile"
"smiling gives you wrinkles" i responded dryly.
"you give me wrinkles" she laughed.
i contemplated saying that her mom gave me wrinkles, but remembered that it may have a different effect for those whose mothers were deceased. so i settled for, "yeah, well"
"yeah well you might be able to write better if you got out of bed"
"get out of bed!" i scoffed tussling the blankets for dramatic effect, as if her suggestion was the most ludacrious idea she had ever had. "i need to be in a place of comfort, a place where my dreams feel safe to surface" i lifted the cup of coffee from the nightstand and gazed guiltily at her from behind my laptop.  it was a lame explanation and i knew she wouldn't believe me.
"i think that perhaps the lethargy in your writing might have something to do with your environment" she teased, grabbing hold of the round knub of my foot beneath a mountain of blankets.
"i'm perfectly content writing from bed, besides, too much stimulation stifles me"
"ah yes, okay" she smiled, "well, i'm going to town"
"what for? i thought we were staying in today?"
"we need food" she bent over my laptop and kissed me on the cheek, "someone has to be the realist"
i loved her. "happy huh?"
"yeah, happy, try it" she laughed.
"and how do i start?"
"i don't know oh queen of the bedroom, survey your kingdom for inspiration"
i looked around our small, little bedroom. my eyes lighted upon her dresser drawer. "can i write about your top drawer?" i asked.
"my top drawer?" she looked in the direction of my gaze, "you mean, the junk drawer? that place is a total abyss. i don't know what you could find in there"
"you" i replied.
"me?"
"yes, you. you wanted 'happy' so i'll write about you" i smiled.
"charming" she said lifting an eyebrow  "well i hope you find miscellaneous junk inspiring" she looked down at her watch, "i should go. see you in a few hours. i hope you'll be out of bed by then"
"i thought you were a realist?  do they hope?" i joked.

Top Drawer

the bed is an ottoman, an ottoman i kneel upon when my dreams grow up like incense smoke, like ripe red cherry tomatoes, perfect on one side but bored through by precocious worms of realism and prudence. the bed is ocean front property facing a wild, deep. i am speaking, of course, about that dresser drawer of yours. that heavy and wild and deep house of things. that belly full of secrets.

pause.  too serious.  think happy, think happy.  i pulled the blankets back and reached for the drawer. 

wee wooden knob like the head of a minature dwarf, a mini, mini, a pine replica of a mind boggling oddity, i pull with the desire to loosen the door to what i hope will be a universe of you.  the wood compresses on its runners, thick weight as real as any ocean, any ocean bulging out of its shorelines.  it opens half-way, blocked by a sock or a shirt or a gramaphone.  i tug and tug, but the drawer will not be forced, it will keep some things in shadow.  ah yes, a universe of you.

i extract articles from the drawer like an oil tanker in the deep blue, pull it up, pull it up, take all i can.  like a longliner drawing horizontal lines to comb through every molecule. 

item 1: All Natural Mint Flavored Lip Balm.  Mood: happy.  Place: the border of Arizona and New Mexico listening to Christian talk radio going 70 down the interstate with chapped lips and sun blazing across our wind whipped faces.  faces we hid desperately behind tiny visors.  the line between shadow and light so sharp it sliced our faces in half.  we were all smiles then.  all smiles and teeth, yerba mate on your breath and Carolynn's Irish Cream on mine. 

item 2: Madonna's Ray of Light CD insert.  No CD.  Mood: drunken.  Place:  a techno dance club in Montreal.  you tripped out on E and me worried about you, worried about you, pretending not to be so worried about you.  i felt out of body, an instrument only, a harmony slightly, a finger tapping descretely.  you held the shoulders of a thin whisp of a girl.  she was high too. and there was something between you two my mundane mind couldn't transcend.  rabid wolves ran off with my sense and i jerked you to a corner.  you almost forget to let the closed eyed angel go, your hands still cupped around imaginary shoulders.  i kissed you to wake you.  but you were farther away from me than the abstract.

i hold the CD insert between forefinger and thumb.  i imagine burning it. 

item 3: A neon green post-it with my handwriting. Mood: happy love. Place: stuck to the screen of your laptop before you woke.  i had to go away for the weekend.  i wanted to wake you, kiss you up, suck on the very essence of you before i had to catch my taxi.  but i knew better than to cling.  the note read: "i love you more than anything in this world"  and it is true.  it is the truest thing in this world.