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Language:
English
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Published:
2026-03-03
Words:
660
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
20
Kudos:
22
Bookmarks:
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Therese Goes to the Oak Room

Notes:

Dear Gentle Readers, here’s a poem on a familiar topic…but isn’t this what we need now? More happy endings? Take a break from whatever is furrowing your brow and indulge. 🥰

Work Text:

I spent the cab ride reliving my short weeks with her

while her words played in my head on repeat.

Over and over her, “I love you,” crooned 

as I watched the memories of our scenes scroll across the cab’s window.

 

By the time we got to Phil’s apartment building 

I was reluctant to go in, 

stalling by meandering on the sidewalk

while the others tumbled out of the cab.

 

Their voices mingled in a happy melange of laughter

and anticipation for the night ahead.

I might have slipped away but Phil’s voice from the window

ensnared me and pulled me up the stairs.

 

I endured long enough to have a drink and attempt conversations.

My hesitancies and natural desire for the quiet corner 

were plagued with her words continuing in my head, “I love you.”

I was stuck between what I had and what I wanted.

 

I came out of the bathroom’s temporary reprieve 

and saw my world and my future.

I would never fit in, but now for more reasons

than my innate solitude and privacy.

 

She had upended everything. 

What had been sufficient before now gaped in emptiness.

My days were hollow and flat without her.

She was no longer a question of how or why.

 

Her words had made those concerns irrelevant.

Her words had opened the door to my future,

if I chose to walk through.

Would I take up residence in an apartment big enough for two?

 

I knew it was more than that, so much more.

Would I leave all I knew to live in a world of our own making?

Would I trust her and that world to sustain me, sustain us?

My questions were pointless as I looked around the coupled, 

swaying room, I knew where I was going.

 

I climb the stairs to the Oak Room, my heart out pacing my steps.

I slip past the distracted maître d’ and look for the face from our trip.

The room is more crowded and active than I anticipated,

bustling and buzzing with Friday night energy.

 

Then, I see the golden head shimmering under the lighted wall sconce.

The hair I had stroked, threaded, grasped and pulled to me

is framing the face that captures my breath and stutters my heart.

I move toward her without conscious thought.

 

It’s always been this way…forces without and within direct me

in spontaneous, meant to be ways, that I don’t control.

Finally, she looks up and sees me.

I recognize the look that no one but me has ever seen.

 

Her eyes briefly flare and her smile hints its secret. 

A casual look her way wouldn’t reveal to others 

any obvious change worth noting or wondering about,

but I recognize the smolder and know the fire that stokes it.

 

I know she’ll territorially mark me as hers.

I know now that I’m capable of returning the favor.

I’m no longer the naive shop girl caught up in the slipstream of her ardor

since she introduced me to the passions that don’t let go.

 

I know there’ll be long, slow to awake mornings for recovery from the night before.

I know we’ll survey our plats of each other,

gently prodding for any damage and

smiling at our personal brandings.

 

I know there’ll be the hurt and fuming man to mollify

and her precious gift to treasure in a new way.

I know our world will be circumspect and held close within our four walls.

But I also know the exhilarating freedom of lying in her arms.

 

The freedom of letting my heart soar and my hands roam,

the freedom of exhaling my love into her ears,

the freedom of lips taking and receiving,

the freedom that is love’s truest gift.

 

Her look gives way to a casual flick of a wave

while telling her friends I’ve arrived.

They turn to me as I complete my journey to her 

and wait for our lives to begin.