Photography- Photographer Chen Shi Song
You know this kind of room
The window that never quite closes—
letting in the scent of night markets,
distant church bells,
the murmur of a language
you’ll never speak fluently.
The bed has known other dreamers.
You can feel it in the way the mattress
holds the shape of absent bodies,
in the faint indent on the pillow
that isn’t yours.
That’s the gift.
You’re not the first soul to breathe here,
just the latest to borrow these walls,
this light, this temporary silence.
Sleep comes easier when you remember
you’re part of a procession of strangers,
all passing through,
all leaving something intangible behind.