Frogs in a Cardboard Box

 

Frogs in a Cardboard Box

By Russell D. Nomer

Copyright Russell Nomer August 23, 2026 All rights reserved ASCAP Work ID# 938718196  ISRC$ QT5AM2518196 

I was barely tall enough to reach the hotel door

When we chased a dozen frogs across the carpet floor

Shaking out a Pampers box, laughing in the dark

You made a rainy highway feel like a holy park

Then you'd throw your hands up high, a monster in the room

Saying blah blah I'm Dracula, coming through the gloom

We were hysterical, safe inside your grin

Before the world got loud, before adulthood set in

You changed my brother's diapers, held my little hand

You belonged to someone else. You still made dark feel planned

For the woman with the biggest laugh a room could hold

That Pampers box still shaking in the back part of my skull

Now the quiet sits where all that noise had been

Holding summer nights before I knew that kind of pain

They took the sound with her. We sat down in the night

Rest easy in the quiet, goodnight, goodnight

I grew up and wore a suit, I stood and watched you marry

Five years old and wishing it was me you came to carry

Then court split my own life, and the miles filled the space

I scrolled your face on Facebook, never touched your face

I typed thinking of you while it lived inside your chest

Sent a bubble from the couch and kept my own hands warm

I stood a hundred miles back, buried in my head

Liked a photo of your kids and left the rest unsaid

To the husband and the kids who stayed when it got bad

I kept my car in park and called that all I had

For the woman with the biggest laugh a room could hold

That Pampers box still shaking in the back part of my skull

Now the quiet sits where all that noise had been

Holding summer nights before I knew that kind of pain

They took the sound with her. We sat down in the night

Rest easy in the quiet, goodnight, goodnight

I couldn't fix the sickness. Couldn't stop the clock.

I couldn't close the distance. Didn't even try to walk.

There's a boy in a hotel room still catching frogs tonight

And a man who had the time, and still stayed out of sight

Blah, blah, I'm Dracula

Goodnight