Alone

To sit and think
about my
aloneness
is to be
alone.

When I am empty
like a bowl
dry of water,
I am alone in my stomach
where faint sounds of something
drip into my blood.

The dryness,
Oh, the dryness
that empties itself into my lungs
and the systemic beating of breath
stumbles into my groin.

Ache.
Ache.
Ache.
Like the dull tapping of a wooden spatula
on smooth, cold marble.
Sticks and stones,
and the whisper of Autumn.

When I am alone,
The world is a deep, black hole
and spirals of smoke swoop into the void.
Where scribbled wasps with netted wings
chew air.
And blow out smoke rings like coins of dull brass.

There is silence.
And there is deafening noise.
As if I am on a subway train.

When I am alone,
Sad stories circle like a cloud of swallows
in front of a falling sun in a red sky.
Stories that the old maiden in the forest tells
as she waits for age under a tree.

When I was young,
My mother.
My mother,
was there.
Her stomach.
Soft.
And my head,
on her belly
for the comfort of her womb.
For the sounds from her inside walls
that would match the beating of my feverish heart.
And I was in love.
And peace.
There are many kinds of silence.

But. Not. Here.
I. Am . Alone.

And I think,
I am alone.