Poem: Hidden In a Closet

 

Hidden In a Closet

dogged fonts mass into scaffolds,

constrict a page, tumble and fall,

again and again,

until a notebook lays crying,

bloated in blue and smudge.

 

bound to spiral, 

the notebook wobbles a little, 

a limp bird curling down,

flapping a bit under dirty clothes,

caught in a closet’s moth-eaten throat

with all the other notebooks.

 

it's a slush pile within a slush pile, 

guts of ink that bristle with secrets:

lust sobbed, monsters inflicted,

a tender dash of care so bright and yet vulnerable, 

so weak.

 

so many stupid, flawed young hopes, 

expressed so wrong, either trite 

or jabberwocky, fantasy so daring

mauled by a gryphon.

many, many wings of marred paper

multiply in the closet, scrounging, it feels,

each and every one of them a seed, 

never to rise, never to blossom,

never to fly or erupt.

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10/16/25 ...