Cousins - Louise Glück

My son’s very graceful; he has perfect balance.

He’s not competitive, like my sister’s daughter.

Day and night, she’s always practicing.

Today, it’s hitting softballs into the copper beech,

retrieving them, hitting them again.

After a while, no one even watches her.

If she were any stronger, the tree would be bald.

My son won’t play with her; he won’t even ride bicycles with her.

She accepts that; she’s used to playing by herself.

The way she sees it, it isn’t personal:

whoever won’t play doesn’t like losing.

It’s not that my son’s inept, that he doesn’t do things well.

I’ve watched him race: he’s natural, effortless—

right from the first, he takes the lead.

And then he stops. It’s as though he was born rejecting

the solitude of the victor.

My sister’s daughter doesn’t have that problem.

She may as well be first; she’s already alone.

"In the desert" - Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

And Sometimes I Sit - Nikki Giovanni

and sometimes i sit

down at my typewriter

and i think

not of someone

cause there isn't anyone

to think

about and i wonder

is it worth it

"I don't want a shoulder to lean on." - Henry Rollins

I don't want a shoulder to lean on. I don't need it. The whole idea of

“Someone, that special someone...!” is for me, a load of shit. I must

be fully contained. No leakage, no spillover. Dependency is weak-

ness. It's such a lie. Lying there in bed, in your lover's arms. She's

behind me, she believes in me! No one is behind me. I am behind

me. I believe in me. I don't need any support group to keep my head

together. I know what I have to do, so I should just shut up and do it.

Today My Horoscope Read - Warsan Shire

You are the alchemist

of your loneliness.

You can create anything

in its place.

Downhill - Julia Vinograd

I don’t have a home

and I live there

all the time.

If no one ever marries me - Laurence Alma-Tadema

If no one ever marries me,—

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty,

And I'm seldom very good—

If no one ever marries me

I shan't mind very much;

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,

And a little rabbit-hutch:

I shall have a cottage near a wood,

And a pony all my own,

And a little lamb quite clean and tame,

That I can take to town:

And when I'm getting really old,—

At twenty-eight or nine—

I shall buy a little orphan-girl

And bring her up as mine.

Love Poem - Richard Brautigan

It’s so nice

to wake up in the morning

all alone

and not have to tell somebody

you love them

when you don’t love them

any more

Picture by Unknown, found on Public Domain (if you own the rights and would like it removed, just contact me!). This is the full poem, not an excerpt.

Untitled - Franz Wright

Will I always be eleven,

lonely in this house,

reading books

that are too hard for me,

in the long fatherless hours.

The terrible hours of the window,

the rain-light

on the page,

awaiting the letter,

the phone call,

still your strange elderly child.

You Must Accept - Kate Light

You must accept that’s who he really is.

You must accept you cannot be his

unless he is yours. No compromise.

He is a canvas on which paint never dries;

a clay that never sets, steel that bends

in a breeze, a melody that when it ends

no one can whistle. He is not who

you thought. He’s not. He is a shoe

that walks away: “I will not go where you

want to go.” “Why, then, are you a shoe?”

“I’m not. I have the sole of a lover

but don’t know what love is.” “Discover

it, then.” “Will I have to go where you go?”

“Sometimes.” “Be patient with you?” “Yes.” “Then, no.”

You have to hear what he is telling you

and see what he is; how it is killing you.

At Dusk - Gösta Ågren

I will be forgotten,

he thinks. Oblivion is

a deep mother. No one

will touch you there; no one

will forget you any more.

Lamium - Louise Glück

This is how you live when you have a cold heart.

As I do: in shadows, trailing over cool rock,

under the great maple trees.

The sun hardly touches me.

Sometimes I see it in early spring, rising very far away.

Then leaves grow over it, completely hiding it. I feel it

glinting through the leaves, erratic,

like someone hitting the side of a glass with a metal spoon.

Living things don't all require

light in the same degree. Some of us

make our own light: a silver leaf

like a path no one can use, a shallow

lake of silver in the darkness under the great maples.

But you know this already.

You and the others who think

you live for truth and, by extension, love

all that is cold.