In the midst of cold,
past the fringes of darkness,
is this place of fire
where we huddle
at the edge of warmth
to relieve our chill
and regard each other’s faces
in the glow,
where we learn stories
of the shadows
and meet our own
darkness.
Loneliness is, perhaps,
believing there is no room
for us in the circle.
Belonging is knowing
every one of us
is the flame.
Posts Tagged ‘loneliness’
In the Bleak Midwinter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, cold, fire, loneliness, warmth on December 3, 2025| 6 Comments »
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, emptiness, geese, life, loneliness, spring on March 17, 2025| 12 Comments »
The pond ice gone a single day,
and already the wild geese
have returned, filling the open water
with riotous honking. Even
the backyard feels like a teaching
of how every emptiness invites
something to fill it, if not feather
then feeling. I think of how
in my most lonely moments,
some strange beauty has wandered
into my vision or woven its singular
song into my ears and I can’t help
but feel infused by life, the way
a trickle of water slowly—
almost imperceptibly—
will eventually fill a vast basin
till its water spills out the gulleys.
Perhaps you’ve felt it, too,
when you’re barren. Void of hope.
Then. A pink cloud.
An unruly clamoring of geese.
Still that barren, hopeless feeling,
but also, there it is, a single green tip
of garlic planted five months ago
that finds its way up to the sun.
Things You Didn’t Want to Play
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, loneliness, play, writing on October 2, 2020| 6 Comments »
Like Monopoly. Because you always ended up landing on Boardwalk
where the red hotel meant you owed two thousand dollars
and all you had were mortgaged railroads. Or like checkers,
because really, what was fun about moving small plastic disks
diagonally and hearing the other kid say, “King me.” And soccer?
Only because your mother made you because she wanted
to be coach. You did want to play school, but no one else did,
so you were the principal, the teacher, the student,
giving yourself homework, grading it yourself. Writing in red
in your best cursive at the top of the page, “See me.”
You didn’t want to play basketball, because no one else
ever chose you for their team. Even though you were tall.
And you were chosen last for volleyball, too. And t-ball.
And Red Rover. And dodge ball. Is it any wonder your favorite
way to play was to visit the junkyard and find treasure?
Or to walk along the lake to look for flowers and worms?
Is it any wonder you learned to love playing alone
in quiet rooms with an empty page and a pen?
There was no way then you could have known
that it would save you—no, you just thought
you were playing the only way you knew how,
walking through the only doors
you knew how to open yourself.
In the Recesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loneliness, poem, poetry, self knowledge, toast on November 25, 2017| 4 Comments »
Sometimes there’s enough joy
in the day that the you who is afraid to be alone
and the you who loves to be alone
and the you who is never alone
and the you who is always alone
all sit at the same table
and share a glass of wine
and though they say nothing
they nod in easy agreement
and wordlessly toast
to each other’s health.
The wine tastes of sunshine,
of yesterdays, of giving up,
a sweetness they can’t name.
Not to Mention the Tightrope Walker
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone time, circus, loneliness, poem, poetry on October 29, 2016| 2 Comments »
Loneliness is still time spent with the world.
—Ocean Vuong
It would be easier if loneliness would come to me
like the angel that wrestled with Jacob,
if it would slip by night into my tent
and rip me out of slumber,
force me to be awake and alone, but
there is no room in my tent.
I have already invited the circus.
We stay up all night and dance,
me and the tigers and fire breathers.
We practice swallowing swords
and how to best stitch
new feather headdresses
and red-sequined capes. All night
the ringmaster announces
the next act and the next, and
though my eyes would droop
and my body would sleep
and my heart would have time
for mourning, I force my dimming self
to clap as the clowns yet again
climb out of their tiny car
with their garish grins—
how could there be so many of them?
with their horns and their tricks
and umbrellas and balls—
so many clowns that loneliness
has no chance to slip into this place
where I entertain endless acts that prevent
me from wrestling, from asking,
please, to be blessed.
One Wandering
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, loneliness, poem, poetry on June 5, 2016| 1 Comment »
One Unfillable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hunger, loneliness, poem, poetry on May 18, 2016| 1 Comment »
Inside Loneliness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loneliness, poem, poetry, separate self on October 21, 2015| 3 Comments »
there are blessings,
though they are wrapped
in sandpaper—
perhaps by now
your fingerprints
are nearly erased
perhaps you’ve noticed
how this
is the gift
Letter to a Far Away Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, friendship, loneliness, poem, poetry on July 24, 2015| 3 Comments »
Even though I know you don’t read poems,
I want to thank you for calling me last night
when your living room was too big for one,
when all the ex-lovers were somewhere else
and even the kids were gone. Thank you
for calling me to say how alone it is.
For half an hour, we were alone together,
weeping and laughing in our separate rooms.
Just tonight I realized I do not know how gravity works.
Something to do with mass. And distance.
How much of what rules us do we not understand?
The vase falls and it breaks. We know that and learn
to be more gentle with our hands. It’s more
out of habit than true understanding. Our loneliness,
too, is a kind of a rule that we spend our whole lives
trying to change, but it is always there.
Eventually we come to see that everything
will be taken from us. Our aloneness is all that is left.
It is only frightening until it is not. Then it frightens us again.
Thank God we are here to explore it together,
this alarming lack of anything to hold onto.
When we say goodbye, it is gentle. We both know
what it feels like to break. There is too much at stake
not to love each other, alone and distant as we are.
But It’s So Quiet, Not Even an Echo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loneliness, poem, poetry, yodel on July 18, 2015| 1 Comment »