Episode 30: Stay With Us
Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing as well as you can be today. This week’s poem and episode discuss a long, brimming conversation between strangers on a long flight. Near the end of the exchange, someone speaks the phrase, “stay with us,” which, out of context, can be interpreted many ways. In most, it’s an offer of comfort and hospitality, such as, “stay with us when/if you visit, stay at our hotel, or stay the night when there’s is a storm that makes driving dangerous. But in this episode, the poem’s narrator unwinds the words a bit further. As someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, they wonder if the extension of “stay with us” is an offering of safety—what’s requested is not only to stay, but to stay with us.
I’ll share it with you now:
How many ways can we interpret
“stay with us?”
from kind, gentle strangers
after gingerale, pretzels, and tomato juice,
and discursive discussion across two
three-seat rows of an Atlantic Ocean flight
about spontaneous sex, Scottish Gaelic, God,
The Song of Achilles, covers of Fleetwood Mac’s
Landslide, and life story emails that make us cry?
Mother, mother, and son. Me & two
empty seats next door—
grace for long, growing legs.
All three, turned to face me,
kneeling in the ravine of reclined seats—
elbows propped on the headrest.
As softly as their seatbelt
clips clicked open
they spoke the words:
stay with us.
And all I knew was that our
plane’s port city
was home for the four of us.
I wasn’t sure if they meant:
at their home or
at their motel or
because of a storm
but I knew they hadn’t asked a question
and so I gathered, if anything,
that they’d heard, seen,
felt, or breathed,
something in my voice or speech
or careful anecdotes breaking,
which made them repeat:
stay with us
(please don’t leave this world yet)
and I didn’t know three words
could make me feel seen
in a way I’d never been.
So please,
stay with us.
Breathe the words in. What do they make you feel or think? How did they connect with your senses? What colours or symbols did you notice? What meaning did you draw? Metaphors? Interpretations? Clarity? Messages?
