If looking-She went crazy

Rarely left alone

for obvious reasons,

when given more than

a minute in solitude

She would start a poem

or worse-

(See)

Dependable as ever

they required her presence

while there was still time

together-no stability

stays the same

(after all)

And dutiful too,

as anyone could be,

she served herself last, cleaned up

after others

with a smile [happy]

And far away gaze,

busy going nowhere

(and getting there)

The blame belonged

not to poetry

alone

(finally.)

(See, after all [happy], and getting there, finally)

Painting By Michael Sweerts (Flemish, 1618 - 1664) artist (Flemish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Times itself

One may find themselves

screaming

from the inside out

LEAVE ME ALONE

and it becomes about

the other

but it never was.

Anyway we attempt to shrug it off

and shirk the cloak of

personability,

it falls with a heavy

THUD. 

By the way-

you were not your own

To be ALONE with

any more than anyone else here weighted down,

and plodding along, prodded on, and prattling on…

It is this nauseousness that makes

mouths salivate for solitude

amidst the stench of obligation,

shit hits the fan,

demanding more

than

a breezy greeting, acknowledgment in

passing as in aloof or aloft and 

above it, over it, 

all over one

that never was. 





Painting by Charles Sprague Pearce, c. 1889 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Making myself scarce

When the door latches,
when it is only me
in this shrinking body,

when all I must do
is what I must,

when I start to feel lucky
I must be blessed,

when I am rested
I think of aging,

when I am tired
I remember dying,

when I wake up
when I reach for a pen,

I am alive. I am living.



Image credit Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, 1840 self portrait in[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In the company of strangers

I thought...
Perhaps she wasn't as lonely
as she thought she was...

Perhaps she wasn't able to see
the difference between wanting
to be thought about
and thinking she was wanted...

She was perhaps mistaking
that forgotten feeling
for need...

I thought
being alone
this long, intentionally
she would see, she shows me
her life had been precisely the way
she wanted
it to be, in gratitude for solitude...

I thought wrong
she said she wanted a man
more than she could stand
since she had not planned
for the golden years
or for the gold she knew
she was due...

She was sure
after all those silver lined years
she still had insecure fears
and had forgotten all about
how much
she thinks of herself,
and what she wants.
She is all she will ever need...

A lone she
in a crowd of couples.


Image by Jurij Šubic [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.