I'm staring at the tangled chaos that
Is my room, and I firmly resolve entropy will no longer
Have its way with me.  And I believe that I can do
This, against the inevitability of the future, though
I know that I have done this a million million times
In the past.  I am Sisyphus in slow-motion.

The shelves come first, an assortment of things that
We didn't really want to read and did, and things we 
Really wanted to read but didn't, and things which we
Never wanted to read and didn't, so how the fuck did they
Get here?  Sort.  In stacks.  Push the dust away, leaving
Tiny trails of cleanliness behind you.

Next, the desk, a wasteland of discarded pieces of life.  
Scribbled papers -- the children of studiousness and 
Boredom:  a love letter, a stick man, a page of arcane
And undecipherable second-order partial differential equations,
The first paragraph of a Pulitzer-winning novel.  Well,
Eventually.  

Under the bed is a yellowing stack of memories,
Faded, wrinkled, crinkled, already items of a bygone era
That you're no longer certain ever really existed.  Read
The words, stare at the black and white pictures which
Stare back with the authority of a history text, with
An intensity so deep that you don't notice the black crud
Covering your fingertips.

It's not so much about putting things away or putting things
Where you think that you'll be able to find them so much as trying
To convince yourself that you really can put your life
In order.