baby went to amsterdam

My nightstand is shaped like an octagon, 
it takes up almost a whole corner of my room.
It used to be on my mother's half of my parent's bedroom,
but now it's not because my mother isn't there either.
It once held camera boxes full of photos she packed away,
catalogued like priceless memories even though most of them were simple,
me playing soccer or her and my dad looking nice, 
the nights she smelled like perfume.
It has seen my parent's first apartment,
and Columbus, Pittsburgh, Midland, Norman, Plano.
Now it sees me, sprawled across a quilted mattress with no bedframe,
trying to turn a piece of furniture into poetry. 
It holds the things I could not find a place for, 
nothing priceless, the things I forget.
Upon it sit a yellow lamp, an overpriced candle in a baby blue teacup, a picture of my best friend,
a girl my mother never met.
The nightstand has seen her come and go, has seen the things she could not throw away,
has smelled her perfume.
Now the octagon is empty in a new city,
and maybe someday soon I will fill it with things I cannot throw away,
and I will learn to catalogue too.

-Loch.