Untidy Memory Drawers

My brain isn’t a timeline,

It’s that junk drawer in the kitchen

where batteries sleep beside birthday candles

and takeout menus from cities I don’t live in.

I remember being five more clearly than last February,

like someone shuffled the deck

and forgot to cut it straight.

I keep the smell of my grandmother’s perfume

right next to the sound of your car door slamming,

Both marked “important” in different handwriting.

First kiss lives beside the night

I cried on the bathroom tiles,

phone buzzing with a number I didn’t answer.

Some days, a random song

pulls out a whole drawer with it—

bus rides, acne, that hoodie you stole—

all spilling onto the floor of my morning

while I’m just trying to make coffee.

I’ve tried organizing it all,

stacking the good on one side,

the bad on another,

But memory ignores my filing system.

It throws confetti and glass in the same box,

tapes a label that just says “you were here,”

and slams it shut before I’m ready.

Maybe the mess is the point—

proof that I lived out of order,

that even the awful parts

Share a drawer with something worth keeping.