My alone, and the alone
you have in your heart
are the same. Sometimes, alone


doesn't make  any noise, it just sits
watching, deep, silent.

But sometimes, alone


is on fire, and alone is screaming,
and alone is bent, beaten --


and I wish my alone could
fly out of my mouth and become
fog-- but the fog has an alone,


everything has an alone, and everyone has
an alone. I can’t throw
my alone away. It belongs to me.

Sometimes, my alone sings into
the gently dropping sun,  and sometimes,
my alone floats up with
water, in the verdant trees,
the high birds,

and I know that my resting alone
is  also resting in the heart of the world.
My alone,
the only alone thrashing in  my heart,
is always thrashing in the  heart of the everything…


we all want silence,
we want to say ,


‘my alone can be only this loud,’
‘my alone can only ache this much’
‘my fire, it must be stomped out,’

but
our alone knows every secret.
We can’t throw it away.


Once the fire of alone sets


we break mirrors, and sleep all day, and smash
body against body;


but we can’t hate our alone. We can hate the fire, we can
hate the pain, but we can’t hate

our alone.