I have a dresser that sits in the recesses of my mother's basement. I found it in the attic of the last physical home I had, Chicago, and I packed it up when I left that home in early spring 6 years ago.

Today I wake after 11 hours sleep in someone else's king sized bed. One of hundreds I have slept in in the 6 years since my Chicago home, and I wake bleeding and thinking about that stoopid dresser I have saved all this time. It is a unkept antique piece of furniture. It was an arduous task getting it out of my Chicago attict. It has been a thorn in my mother's basement side for over half a decade. What is it about the dresser that feels like my heart this new moon?

The bottom drawer is deep and is packed with gifts people have made me with their own hands: other people's art. I have photograph prints from New York, poetry from Wisconsin, blown glass from Oregon, oragami from San Francisco, sketches from Maui, letters from Europe and a worn out braided piece of yarn a little girl managed, through many hands, to deliver to me after seeing me perform in STOMP. These are the things that can't be thrown away. Hand made gifts more alive than any diamond or gown.

In the drawer above that, protected and wrapped in scarves of purple, blue, and green, are "tools" of my spirituality - things I once used in an attic in Chicago to connect to what I percieved as divine. Four heavy glass goblets I stole from various restaraunts across the country, incense burners fit for the Pope, sconces and wands and magickal unmentionables. These are the things can't be thrown away. I hope to "drink and never know thirst" from that stolen chalice again someday.

The next drawer above is thin and holds only one thing: the cloak my grandmother sewed me. Black velvet outside, purple velvet inside, draping long to cover the ankles, hood fitted preciesly to shadow the eyes. I have worn it ritualistically only a handful of times, including Halloweens, an outdoor autumnal festival, and to sing at my grandmother, herself's, funeral. This is something that can not be thrown away. Darkness rests on the wearer's shoulders, but inside, through knowing black, the soul becomes ever deeper, like the purple ocean's everever.

The top two drawers are discreet and tightly packed. If I could open them without crushing the contents, I would feel the rush of all my created symbols - the mysteries I have uncovered - Pandora's taboo unleashed - opening the top drawers is inescapable tears. In these drawers are things I have collected from the earth, things I have made or found special. In these drawers are the objects I have "worked" with. There are lady bugs, there are bird bones, there are pine cones, sea shells and feathers. There are river stones painted with runes, there are beads and spells and wishes and intentions and beliefs and disappointments and love, so much love, so much care boxed up, unopenable neglected mostly forgotten in the recesses of my mother's basement.

6 years without a home (only the soul knows where is home) - 6 years without a home I have nothing, need nothing, am nothing, in that: free. But something human in me, not enlightened, not divine, something powerfully human has a need, and I wake shaming myself for needing anything by making terrible wishes to burn that worthless dresser - burn everything I ever held onto, every symbol of connection, every forgotten reminder, every dried up butterfly wing to ashes - watch the last pieces of myself so far off and irrelevant consumed in flame, transformed to ashes, burn and laugh, burn and laugh like a madwoman alive. Because the owner of this apartment I have been house sitting for, returns in three weeks and I do not live here. I must move on before Papa Bear finds Goldielocks sleeping in his bed.

Just today, I wish I could lay here forever and possess something and call it mine.

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