Travel Together Poem by Sanjana Swaroop

I want to travel to places I have never been
And yet, I am not a traveller.

I don't yearn for the fresh air in the mountains or
the salt licked seaside.

I would take your nicotine stained breath and your tears
over a thousand sunsets.
Your tears, salty but not soured;
Tears made up of the good and the bad.
I want to travel the years made up of the good and the bad,
with you.

Take me by the hand and let us hike to that existential rock
and the hard place.
Let's unpack our bags, and our burdens and
become each other's essentials.
Let's discover the foliage in our emotional fields;
show me the stubborn weeds that are hidden under your petunias.
Let me breathe in the fragrance of your roses
and show you that my garden is riddled with thorns too.
Thorns that cut us more vengefully, than those we seek to protect.

Entangle your fingers with mine and walk over to the beach,
with sandy shores littered with seashells of unfulfilled dreams, aspirations
and childhood fantasies.
Let us sink in our feet, in the sand,
in the now
and let our silence strengthen each other.
Let's dive in your deep trenches,
those dark places that you swim away from.
I want to show you that within the darkest recesses of our minds
grow beautiful corals;
that fear can yet sustain life.

Hold me under the picnic shade and whisper the magic words into my ears.
Let me show you how to let go of worries
on the wings of floating dandelions.
Let's gaze at your exponentially vast sky and count
the stars, the comets and the lost souls you look up to.
I want to show you that going places is not as important as
stopping somewhere for a moment;
that milestones mark the journey, not the distance.

I want to travel to places I have never been,
not far and wide
but extensive and intimate.
So show me,
how to get to you.