The You In My Nightstand

Its face was the used page of a diary,

all bleeding ink and bent corners.

Voice like a scratched record,

but with no one to listen to it.

A dried ink pen for a spine,

all chewed up brittle plastic.

With a brass locket for a heart,

hung on tangled chain and empty of sentiment.

It peered at me with mica-flake eyes,

squinting into fluorescent light.

I paid it with a copper penny to suckle,

closed the drawer to no complaint.

My memory smelled like cedar and lint,

felt like a knuckle in the eye.