Sitting
very much alone
on a makeshift bench
out of an old log,
my coffee balanced in
a knot in the wood I've
made into a cup holder,
my feet planted into the
soggy leaf-covered dirt.
I gaze outward onto
the wooden bridge
that aids the passerbyers
of persons and canines to
overstep the pebble-laden
creek.
The air is brisk,
the sun sneaking only
occasional glances at my
solitude
behind a screen of
scattered trees,
tall and thin,
buried in leaves slowly
transitioning from green to
yellow.
I ponder on how
brave everyone has
said I am,
that they could never do
what I'm doing,
like I'm some sort
of war hero.
I laugh slightly to myself,
for, I wonder, how much
moxy does it really take
to sit on an
abandoned stump in the
woods, fighting off
tears of loneliness and
anxiety?
Aren't those who are
brave not so
chock full of doubt,
not clinging to a pen
and a notebook in
hopes of dispelling
waves of woes?
The wind blows by me
once more as if to
reassure me that
my newfound spot of
singularity is exactly
where I am supposed to
be, so I go back to
watching the passerbyers, or,
momentarily,
the lack thereof,
sipping my coffee
and soaking in my new
surroundings.

We have the kinda love
where I can only love you from afar,
feel you in the lyrics of songs that
I fight the urge to send your way,
see you in the stanzas of poems
I desire to imitate.
I am forced to love you like the
vegetation loves the sun;
distant but omnipresent,
refusing to forget you even in
the depths of winter.

When the poetry flows through you,
it waits for no perfect moment,
there is no convenience mustered
to await your finding
paper and a pen.

When the words come,
you just know,
you feel the syllables rising from
the tips of your toes,
exploding out of your fingers,
propelling you into an
unsuspected state of
delirium as your mouth
silently forms the shapes
you spit onto your notebook,
brave hands twisting and
turning purple letters
round themselves,
brain melting and oozing
out into similes and metaphors,
pictures popping from
stories told and
secrets disclosed until
in one final swoop
the moment passes,
your work is done and
the pride and fear and
vulnerability and anxiety
you just birthed
stares back at you,
its ambiguous smirk
leaving you breathless.

And two days later,
the taste and smell of your skin;
senses still aroused.

The breath in my chest
Scraped against my esophagus
As the preacher read his
Introductory scripture and a
Mourning loved one doubled over
In grief and despair as she
Struggled to bid adieu;

The hairs on the back of my neck
Stood horizontally and
Perpendicular to my concrete floor
As I heard the sweetest soul I know
Choke on her sobs on the
Other end of the receiver,
As she struggled to understand
The onset of pain and finality
She was forced to swallow;

My stomach hollowed and
Acidic anger bubbled and carved out my insides
When I read my best friend's texts,
A series of words
That seemed too cruel to be true,
A riffraff of  interrogatories and
Unsettled punctuation,
Summarizing the momentary suspension
Of her resiliency
As she processed the
Breaking of her heart;

And now I lay motionless
On my mattress,
Hot tears masquerading behind my
Tightened eyelids as I writhe in
Empathy,
Alone in my incapability
To end the pains and the woes of
Those around me,
As my body thus must then grieve
For me.

Oh, how there is never enough
time for a person to
be alone.

Life's greatest treasure
is loneliness;
finding peace in the silence,
sanctity in the solitude.