A Kind of Theft - Two poems and a common ache

What does it feel like to want someone who doesn't really care much about you? In this Season Two opener, we read two poems that ache in different ways — Vikram Seth's "All You Who Sleep Tonight," a quiet, communal address to everyone lying awake missing someone, and Camonghne Felix's "Then, A Longing," a raw, interior poem about desire as a kind of theft. Two poets and one common ache we've all carried a...... Welcome to Soothing Stanzas Season Two : Love, Unrequited...All you who sleep tonight - Vikram SethFar from the ones you love,No hands to left or right,And emptiness above –Know that you aren’t alone.The whole world shares your tears,Some for two nights or one,And some for all their years.Then, A Longing - Camonghne FelixMy heart is the son of my body and it wants you.Do you know how much that aches? Like a salt bathfor the blistered. Like a cold that haunts the bone.It betrays me and I kneel to it; wouldn’t you call thata kind of theft? A kind of breaking-in? In any unspokenlanguage, shame is a palindrome that riddles me:through the holes, a blue moon whistles nearby,me and all your untouched desires gathering. At nightevery bell is your voice ringing my name. I am alreadywillingly of you, ungainly with consent. May I touchthe clouds of your chest with my fingers? Am I fatedto be the lover who begs?