The Writing Closet

No I don't write in the closest.
I have to clean the closet. The one in my writing room.
I must.
Not because it is stuffed to the ceiling with notebooks and class handouts or books..oh, so many books.
No, I have to clean it out because I am not that person anymore.
It is the closet that holds the stages.
It is painful to look at what crap I wrote.
It is embarrasing now to read the poem that rhymed.
Oh Lordie, this is way past due.
But if I do not purge...it is there... stagnant remnant of what I was or tried to be.
the confessional poetry
the awful sonnets
the novel with 5 chapters that still waits...it won't be long....OUT!
And the handouts....I never read half of them when they were handed out!
I counted 50 notebooks.....10 journals....one word collecting book
one book for collecting found language and overheard conversation
Do you believe that?
I can't leave this for my children to go through....or my husband...he's featured in a few pieces
Not that I plan on going anywhere soon...but you NEVER know...
So let me be the decider of what they will ponder over
The notebooks...saved in the imaginary writer's box....it would take an archeological dig to find the why of the original thoughts..the experiences..
bits and scraps of feelings
of pain
of desire
of sorrow
of grief
of heartache
heartbreak
anger
judgement
lonliness
hurt

I dropped my bucket down that well
because that is where the real stuff is
and I found I had it all.
...and writing..especially with a #2 pencil...
filled that bucket that I hauled up
and tried to fashion writing out of it.

Oh don't get me wrong
there's good stuff
I'll keep that
the good poems that still stir me when I read them like they were written by someone else
the funny short stories...especially Large Marge..I'll keep all her stories
Where did she come from?  A gay, motorcycling, tall, redhead that bowls...
But really
it's time