The Intimate Guest Room

Lyrics

The second floor, past the portrait hall.
Not the formal guest suite, never that one.
This door, the one with the brass key, number seven.
It doesn't click, it sighs open.

The air is still in here.
Still smells of you.
Lavender from the sachets in the drawer, and something else.
Old paper, your cologne.
The bed is made, the white coverlet turned down just so.
Just as you liked it.
The armchair, the one with the worn velvet, still holds the shape of your shoulders.
I trace it with my fingers.

This is your room.
It was never for anyone else.
The Intimate Guest Room, that's what your mother called it, with a little smile.
But it was always just your room.
A quiet harbor in a house of storms.

I remember the autumn of 1928.
Rain against the glass for three straight days.
You sat in the window seat, reading Whitman aloud.
Your voice, a low rumble against the storm.
Your silver-backed hairbrush is still on the vanity.
I haven't moved it.
I won't let the staff move it.
One hundred strokes before bed, you said. A ritual.

This is your room.
It was never for anyone else.
The Intimate Guest Room, a name on a floor plan, a polite fiction.
But it was always just your room.
A quiet harbor in a house of storms.

The world turns outside these walls.
Wars have come and gone.
The elms on the lawn grew tall, then succumbed to disease.
New cars whisper on the gravel drive.
But in here, the light still falls the same way across the Aubusson rug.
The dust motes dance in the afternoon sun, just as they did then.
Do you remember, Julian?
Do you ever think of this place?

The coverlet is cool to the touch.
I'll close the door now.
And lock it.
Until you come back.
If you come back.