Stories in the cupboard

Hello. This is my poetry blog. I'm also creating music at: secretpianopavilion.bandcamp.com

[storiesinthecupboard]

Here's a directory of my selected poems:

Find me also on Hello Poetry!

2026

Ten steps below

Relatively alive

Other end of the neighbourhood

Waiting

Who are you, really?

2025

Reality

Something strange about you

Funeral

Remarkable

A promise

A feeling

Tiny human

Funeral at the sunflower shop

Me and the pigeons

Your shadow

Runners

Sparrow princess

Lionheart

Wonderful minds

Evergreen

2024

Shooting star

Farewell at the art museum

Train of the invisibles

Rooftops

Summer snow

Run

Wing patcher

I never knew how to ride a bike

Clown school prodigy

The day I dropped my violin

2023

On the road

All the little things

Here

Runaway train

Lines

Never to be found

Laundry day

2022

Penny's purgatory

Glass of water

Five hundred yards

Midwinter orchestra

© Stories in the cupboard poetry & music

[storiesinthecupboard]

I never knew how to ride a bike

I remember looking through pictures from the old times reading textbooks on how to catch the tide running from the suburbs to the strange new town

I would grab a bicycle from the gates equipped with three wheels and an eternal fate trying to find balance in the streets and float

It’s an indescribable sound the world keeps humming a tune

I used to visit graveyards when no one had died and realized that pity parties are just in hindsight for creatures with one-and-a-half wings

And I tried to send letters to the ones in the night I switched on the light to see what was meant to be right

It can be hard to count from one to a million without losing your mind

It’s an indescribable sound the world keeps humming a tune

It’s an indescribable sound

I never knew why, I never knew how.

[storiesinthecupboard]

On the road

Remember that summer day by the creek?

When we stole the neighbour’s car and got dressed up in seaweed And then turned the radio into a tiny answering machine that lifted our windows and made us listen to the sea

We were on the road again The day was rising above the trees We were on the road again Screaming from the top of our lungs

“Let’s start fresh and never go back”

Remember that summer day by the creek?

When we stole the neighbour’s car and got dressed up in seaweed And turned the radio into a tiny answering machine

that lifted our windows and healed our invisible seams.

[storiesinthecupboard]

Summer snow

The trails led to the old house the ground was as cold as the winter It had been months since I last heard about the world

The orange petals were catching a cold and the distant sky was shouting It had been years since I last saw that kind of rain

“Let’s take a walk in the summer snow. Tomorrow is a thousand miles away,” you said.

You had never seen snow before You didn’t know what that meant You lived in your hole of comfort nowhere to be seen

But you dreamt of distant forests out on the unknown sea I couldn’t let the waves catch me

Now I just might.

“Let’s take a walk in the summer snow. Tomorrow is a thousand miles away,” you said.

“I know that you will always get around in the end.”

[storiesinthecupboard]

Funeral

I think something died that night

I closed the door, now I check it thousands of times  and rest, only occasionally 

I look up sometimes I take the train and fall asleep I listen to the sounds the roof makes and think about the closest thing

to rising up from six feet under,  I think I’d like that.

I think something died that night

I went to the funeral,  I remember nothing,  now I lie restless  and count numbers in my head 

I think I must have seen the signs but I didn’t,  it’s a constant reminder that I said my goodbyes,  but a little bit too late

I miss you,  I wonder if I ever knew you 

[storiesinthecupboard]

Rooftops

What if we changed our names and disappeared? The skyline is lower than ever before

What if we ran away but looked the same? The telephones are silent now

The clouds form a pattern the billboards are looking at us the cars down below glimpse through the dust

What if we stayed here?

Out on the rooftops on a morning like this

[storiesinthecupboard]

The day I dropped my violin

I dropped my violin when I heard about it The unknown had taken you and dressed you up in white

I lost my ears when I heard about it Your room had been cleaned And your paintings had been piled up in the closet

I closed my mind when I heard about it The ocean was looking for you But you couldn’t be there

I faced the hills That led me to the seaside There was a tiny fish in the ocean that looked just like you

Swimming around my ankles for a full circle, then gone.

I dropped my violin when I heard about it But picked it up again when the time was right

I picked it up again after the longest while And wrote a song about the fish and the sea.

[storiesinthecupboard]

Ten steps below

I live inside my cardboard walls If you squint your eyes, they might resemble a castle I cut my grass ten times a day, I count the steps to my door and to the other end of the town, that's where I get the greatest ideas. But little do they know, they can't touch my best one:

Ten steps below, I often venture there, It's a place where I confuse the numbers and think it's a dozen, maybe twenty, and back out like the world's frozen in time, and I forget what it is that makes me open my front door every morning.

But something lures me in, It calls me beautiful names that I cannot resist, It makes me wonder if I ever needed my walls to begin with, It counts the numbers with me like it's a common morning routine, and makes it all seem like It's just a rehearsal of a play

But then it looks straight at me, and I forget my lines, It looks for clues that might indicate that I'm already halfway gone, and it adds fuel to the flames, the numbers go up, to thirty, to fifty, to a hundred, until the way back up feels like climbing a tower that crumbles on my fingertips.

With my best efforts, I get to the first step, I shut my ears, I go to the other end of the town, and try to forget what it means to count from one to ten.

Next morning I repeat it all again. 

[storiesinthecupboard]

Ten steps below

I live inside my cardboard walls If you squint your eyes, they might resemble a castle I cut my grass ten times a day, I count the steps to my door and to the other end of the town, that's where I get the greatest ideas. But little do they know, they can't touch my best one:

Ten steps below, I often venture there, It's a place where I confuse the numbers and think it's a dozen, maybe twenty, and back out like the world's frozen in time, and I forget what it is that makes me open my front door every morning.

But something lures me in, It calls me beautiful names that I cannot resist, It makes me wonder if I ever needed my walls to begin with, It counts the numbers with me like it's a common morning routine, and makes it all seem like It's just a rehearsal of a play

But then it looks straight at me, and I forget my lines, It looks for clues that might indicate that I'm already halfway gone, and it adds fuel to the flames, the numbers go up, to thirty, to fifty, to a hundred, until the way back up feels like climbing a tower that crumbles on my fingertips.

With my best efforts, I get to the first step, I shut my ears, I go to the other end of the town, and try to forget what it means to count from one to ten.

Next morning I repeat it all again. 

[storiesinthecupboard]

Tiny mythologies

We look for fire inside our walls Burning embers, bright and tall And close the doors that never lead to anywhere at all

Anywhere at all

We listen, closely to the shores, that call for us, we might need more, to run from things that seem to grow and reach as in real time

We're growing far from time

And I think I'm falling through the ceiling that I built It's made from soaked paper, and it carries all my guilt, we're lacking in a number of ways that they all see, but maybe the day after, we can write what we could be.

[storiesinthecupboard]

Relatively alive

You stand in the snow It wraps you up in a blanket like you've never known before, It consoles you in times of trouble, It covers you and makes you forget, and you settle for it

You walk in tiny steps to somewhere you've been before The footprints get buried under, but you can never forget traces, and they can't never forget you, shaking them off doesn't do any good, because you can feel them in your core

Then you end up looking at the world at a distance It doesn't shout at you anymore, and it doesn't whisper anymore, It stays quiet and nods as a sign of silent indifference, It falls asleep and so do you, maybe for a lifetime,

and you settle for it.

[storiesinthecupboard]

The way we wanted to be

Look in the mirror, tell me what do you see? Do you remember, the way we wanted to be?

A pair of clowns, building thrones for the fools, now made of something that doesn't exist, anymore

[storiesinthecupboard]

Other end of the neighbourhood

I walked along a path towards a sound A strange thing to hear, newfound

I lived miles away, on the other end of the gates, we're born to be the loveliest things but our eyes look down, again

I saw pretty days, on the riverside Rooftops crumbled down, the flowers almost died

Then I saw myself, counting down my days, I looked around, for a while, and waved goodbye in vain  

Now I wait for the town to be rebuilt Like the one on the other side, where we used to live The pathway has been closed, the flowers have outgrown, but there's a nameplate in my mind

that I think I might know

[storiesinthecupboard]

Waiting

I made it out alive

crawled my way through the neighbourhood that doesn't exist anymore

I stood still for a moment

I looked up to the trees that fell so loud, that I had to cover my ears and close my eyes

Now I've been waiting for a while

I stand on empty streets with no signs, and no words, just deafening silence

I made it out alive

and now I question if I ever heard anything at all.

[storiesinthecupboard]

Who are you, really? 

You walk the edges of normalcy there's never enough space for you to feel contained You paint your walls, time after time, and never feel any shame

You face the winter, like a friend It talks in a strange language, walks in uncommon shoes But you venture into storms, you grab the wind by its core, it never had anything on you

You stand still, sometimes, The world holds its breath for a second, and waits But you keep moving, you greet the world until you fall asleep

And seek the edges, again and again.

[storiesinthecupboard]

The hound

There's a hound in my head that barks at the wrong things I've been training him forever, but the only words he knows are "run" and "hide"

I keep the hound on a leash at arm's length, I'm too scared to get close and I talk to him, in a reassuring way that no hound will ever listen

And I tie his leash to a gate but he viciously bites it in two Then lashes out, just like I do, when I fail to convey anything else

There's a hound in my head that runs after strange things I've been training him forever, and now I think I'm running out of time

But how could you buy more when all you think about is time?

[storiesinthecupboard]

Fantasy

Sometimes I find myself standing at an abandoned bus stop I count the birds to pass the time, and my mind goes somewhere it both should and should not

I envision the person I'd like to be

The one who's ahead of time, stands on a tightrope as if the world was ending, and opens doors to somewhere else

It's a dangerous sentiment, one that pulls me from my ears, shakes me from my shoulders, tosses me around like I'm a prop on a stage, and then throws me in the corner like a used towel

It lingers on my mind, pops and cracks like a kettle that's left alone and is boiling over, and soon enough, it fills all the rooms I've ever had and angrily demands

"Listen to me, why don't you listen to me?"

And it gets quiet all of a sudden, recognises I'm doing it all right, but I'm not the kind to do as I should, so I belittle it until it shrinks into small particles that only occasionally burst my bubble

But it never really goes away,

so I keep counting.