Underwear Drawer
A poem
I recently came across a writing prompt from Rattle Poetry:
Think of something you didn’t expect to open up but did.
As I lay in my hammock on my front porch, the first thing that came to mind was the day I moved into my house 13 months ago, one week before my divorce was finalized.
I remembered that first feeling of being alone after all my friends had left from helping me move in.
I went to grab clean clothes before a shower and opened my underwear drawer to find a note tucked beneath the pile.
Yesterday, I finally wrote about it.
Buried under a pile of panties
in the top drawer,
I found your handwriting.
Our first Christmas together
as husband and wife.
“You are the greatest gift
that God or anyone
has ever given me.”
Written with so much heart.
It’s the first night
sleeping in my home,
the one I spent months
searching desperately for
while you sat in our home,
filling up on White Claw.
My flushed face wells
with bubbled tears
barely breaking from my eyes.
The writer’s soul buried,
shrouded by demons,
hazy from the coping
of trash cans full
of smashed aluminum.
Layered in two truths,
grieving a body
that lives in darkness
but once shined brightest.
As I begin again
I must escape the burden,
the pervasive wondering,
if your aliveness will return.
But I keep your note
to remember the times
dressed in white
and unbridled hope,
for the version of me
coated in rose glass.
To preserve our story
in all its naive beauty
before your brokenness
took center stage.
