Please note that due to its formatting, this poem is best viewed on a tablet or computer. If the poem appears to be misaligned or if you are using a mobile phone, you can read it here.

I want to ☐  sit in the passenger seat of whichever car you’re driving
☐  sing along to, like, Hole, or something, as brake lights ♫
milk out your eyes

I want to ☐  buy us almond croissants from the pop-up stall on High Street

I want to ☐  know what you’re afraid of
☐  know what makes you feel safe

I want to ☐  hear about you being good at your job
☐  see you walk into a room and know you are tethered to me

I want you to ☐  look after my wallet when I don’t have pocket space
☐  buy fresh soil and upsized pots for my various indoor plants

I want people to ☐  think I’m lucky
☐  think I’m lucky but also that you’re lucky and so ultimately we
are very well-suited because in any other relationship 
our luck would be uneven except here it isn’t, here
it is a levelled scale

I want everything about us to ☐  be levelled

I want to ☐  hear you play piano in the next room
☐  know you’ll never, ever—and I mean this—write me a song

I want you to ☐  love me even though I’m a hypocrite

I want to ☐  be able to write about this now but never when I’ve got what 

I want

I want to ☐  recognise your handwriting

I want you to ☐  answer my phone

I want to ☐  own a coffee machine together and to kiss you before I leave 
in the morning
☐  sit on the train and look down at my environmentally-friendly 
travel cup &
☐  know the beverage filling it came from a place we both choose 
to occupy

I want        to ☐  lend you my computer

I want your friends to ☐  see me by chance and offer me a seat at their table outside 
whichever café it happens to be

I want to ☐  know which characters you dislike on television shows

I want to ☐  feel you turn to me
☐  be sure you will turn to me

I want us to ☐  watch some children related to us play sport on a Saturday 
morning even if it’s in torrential rain and we all end 
up soaked and have to change clothes as soon as we 
get home and can still feel the smarting nerves 
deep within us trying to fight that chill for 
hours after

I want to ☐  watch your throat as you tip your head back to get the last of 
a glass of water

I want to ☐  get used to having these things
someday ♫
/

☐  get used to having


even one of them

/


I want to ☐  get so used to having these things

that I forget what it’s like

to ☒  

want       them                              /

/

/

that I forget what it’s like

to ☒  ache ♫

Tate Fountain (she/her) is a dispenser of pop culture trivia and one fifth of the Starling editorial committee. Her work has been published in Aniko Press Magazine, Min-a-rets (Annexe and Apocrypha), and The Agenda, among others.

You can follow Tate on Twitter and Instagram @tatefountain.