the dresser

This is the third time I've been made-over. Fourth, really; but one cannot really count the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next as "reinvention." At least, I cannot. True change requires a stripping of my soul; a new purpose. Ironic, how in each instance less of me remains, but my value increases. Funny, how a society of such gluttons - mass producers of Che images, collective individuality; insatiable consumers of artificially-flavoured breakfast shakes in the pursuit of health - should value me more now that I've been used, sanded down into something brittle: my purpose, questionable. Open to interpretation.

Do you chase the history of humanity through your desire of me, or do you crave the chemical lacquer that covers my wounds, now called "character?" Is it love, or do you like choking me? Starving out my oxygen with each coat of clear, just to see your own reflection in me better?

Does this really matter to me? Not quite. They're just questions I have. The truth is, you can never define yourself through me, and I think that deep down you already knew that, despite how you sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for my number to be called, so that you may frantically, casually, raise your paddle, assert your authority over me. I am just a cover for you; a facade. You will stuff me full of socks maybe; summer soles in winter. Guest linens. Yellowed letters of love, buried like treasure, but just paper, just words: everything and nothing simultaneously.

You will give me much more than the deed to your house, folded neatly in a lock box, the bottom shelf (because thieves are too lazy to bend over). You will surrender more than the stains that tattoo your outer shell, the pieces of cloth that you strip away each night: equalized.

The currency with which you purchase me is more valuable than the manifestations of Mammon you humans are so quick to shed blood for; and yet you do not value them at all. Your secrets. Your essence. Your measure of self-worth. The representations of your own image in your mind's eye. What you do not share with others in this earthly life, but leave for them to discover in your death, once it's too late.

I am much more than slabs of wood precisely nailed together; a whole of parts, constructed, reconstructed, until, inevitably, deconstructed, used for kindling for the Christmas fire, memories of dressers past forgotten against the prospect of the new Dustbuster under the tree (so much cleaner, don't you think?)

Me? I am Your Protector.