Amidst You

poem I wrote for someone I care about

I want to sleep in your room. Not with you, no, I want you to leave your room like you’ve just stepped out but plan to come back any moment; I want to know how you are in the midst of things. It’s not really about the room at all. It’s not the container, it’s what fills it. I want to be amongst your things, so wherever I turn I can face them and imagine their relation to you. I want to sleep next to your favorite glass, the one that you reach for not because it’s sentimental but because you like the way it feels in your hand. So when I wake up in the middle of the night, gripped with thirst, I too will be soothed by that beautiful thing which has delivered the essential to you. I want to trace your routines, learn you through reverberations. I want to open every cabinet drawer and discover how you fold your clothes. I imagine it is with the same care you exert over most things. Sometimes you touch me so delicately and with so much desire only to fold me up under your shoulder. I’d like to see your room and be something more than parallel. To look you in the eye through the arrangement of your books and pens. Touch you through the handling of that which is sacred to you.