My Corridor
A Poem by Quinn Collins
Room 12: Room 13: Room 14: Room 15:
Mum & Dad Friends Ex-VIPs Her, lost
In Room 12 The next room, In 14 there is Lastly, Room 15,
they sit and hope and their eyes are anyone I’ve she is staring
for me, for my pitying, cheering ever loved and out the window.
fragile ill health. me on at the same lost. Most of them She does not
They will me better time. The pedestal shrug, don’t even notice when I
but don’t look up makes me wonder know why they’re come in or when
from their papers, if they do love me, in here, in now. I apologise to her.
even when I bleed or if I will hear After all this time, There’s a spectre
out on the floor them calling me really? They long of her already in this
right there, then. brave, again. for the walls of 13. beating chamber.
If I were to enter, If I were to enter, If I were to enter, If I were to enter,
the noise would I’d thank them I would get on my 15 would not choose
go on and on and if they stopped hands and knees, me back and I’d stare
on forever and cheering, and for beg just one of at the back of her
ever, unending a second, let me them to care, to head, hope to see her
Scream Speak Stay Turn
I keep walking past it all to the big red door at the end of the hall.
When I enter, I’m gone and all is forgotten.
A Statement by Quinn Collins on their process
Nobody wants to know exactly what other people think of them. This is, at its core, what ‘My corridor’ is about – it’s my guess at what would happen if I ever had to find out.
I have long avoided shape poetry, but the subject of ‘My Corridor’ didn’t make sense to me in any other form. It’s a letter to everybody I have ever loved – and if I wrote one of those without some kind of constraints, it would make for very messy, convoluted prose. The tightness of the poem as it relates to doors keeps me succinct and powerful in my words. It also helps, I hope, to convey how I imagine the briefness of the visit of each room: nobody wants to know exactly what other people think of them.
It'd be remiss of me not to talk about the tone shift of the final door in this poem. I’ve only been in love once – truly, anyway – and I don’t write about her often in poems because I have peace of mind from the way it ended. However, in this poem, this is the natural conclusion: my heart is made up of these four ‘beating chamber’s and having her on the page completes it entirely, even if she is in ghost form.
The final line imagines that I am free of worrying about what these people think of me – in the only way I could imagine at the time of writing.