Chest of Drawers

Fi.
An original written by Alexandra.

Young Woman Relaxing (1894)
Francesc Masriera

You spend years suppressing, storing,
archiving all your fears, anxieties, paranoias,
insecurities, disappointments, dreams,
heartaches and tragedies, in the unwavering
hope that someday someone will enter your
life and unearth it all.

No light or air gets into this chest of drawers
you so quickly seal shut each time you
bank another dime. The contents become
discoloured, frayed, tangled in cobwebs,
sizzled with rust, infected with mould.

So, when the time finally comes for that
someone to listen to and hear it all, there
is nothing of worth to be said. It is all
aged, stale and insignificant, and so different
from how it originally was stored. They leave
and you’re left with your chest of drawers
filled with expired qualms like a child at her
garage sale with only a few coins in her piggy
bank, surrounded by all her neglected Barbies,
tattered stuffed animals, scuffed shoes, all of
which had their own tales to tell and stories to
recount. But no one is listening and no one
would even believe if they talked.

It at least could have meant something if
it prompted an epiphany, motivated change,
inspired others, but it did none of that. It
will reach no other fate than to be buried
with you. It will be sunk even further into
darkness and oblivion, and your ghost will
realise that there was no point to any of this
at all. You should have aired them when you
were alive. Perhaps it would have fallen on deaf
ears and no one would have been around to
hear it, but at least its remnants would have
caught momentum in the wind – it could have
danced through the breeze of the trees, swirled
around with the motions of the tide, reached
the night sky and cozied themselves up next to
the stars for company. It could have made a life
for itself long after you passed.

Now, however, it dies with you with its craving to
be acknowledged never realised. You end up being one
of the pieces in this godforsaken chest of drawers
– unheard, neglected, only guilty of wanting a
little bit more, and even lonelier than how you began.
You never deserved this loneliness. Never, ever.

Girl Playing Solitaire (1909)
Frank Weston Benson