Our Childhood Bedroom – A piece inspired by Description by Mark Doty

Kara Rose Kowalski

Our childhood bedroom

—ours, I call it, because
this is the room

where I was taught privacy,

and we were taught,
for us, privacy would have to be shared.

Four off-white walls

stamped with violet and rose-colored flowers
for us to count each night

as we drifted deep to sleep,

laying in our chestnut engraved wood
twin sized beds.

Each accompanied by a white wood

bedside table and a giggly,
curly-haired, polish girl, no more than a few feet away.

As soon as that clear glass knobbed,

rickety, worn door clicked shut,
our gentle, whispered story exchange begun.

The voice we share,

pirouetting and jumping through hoops
until we found each other again

in the dreams we created

with one another—in mind.
Your hair stayed short, hugging your blushed cheeks,

as mine grew longer,

our curls still coiling one another’s,
as we echoed our appearances through the years.
Each night we lay in the cotton blend sheets,
separate, yet exchanging air,
and holding our grasp to one another in silence.

Our room, scattered with our clothes,

a shared, mahogany bookshelf
stacked with garments that belonged as much to us
as they did the ones that wore them before
and after us. The closet instead,
is where we stored our treasures.

A matching summer dress set—yours violet,

mine pink—baskets of dolls, stuffed animals with forgotten names,
and collections of the book’s overdue to the library.

This was our first bedroom,

what was yours, which eventually became ours.
We now fall deep to sleep

separated by cities and stories

we have yet got to exchange through
the voice we still share.

Our childhood bedroom

now stands as a place we were once again forced to share,
the painted-on flowers have been long ago painted over.

These dreams I find myself in each night,

just know, belong as much to me
as they do you.

Sisters, growing apart a little more each day,

but just know, so much of me
grew from us. If it weren’t for you,

I ask myself
who would I have
to exchange with me, these stories?