This is a different kind of alone, girl
The kind you are relieved you don’t enjoy
After all
You thought you were made for this.
You who traipse through foreign lands to meet strangers
You who never run except more deeply into herself
Now quarantine brings this different kind of alone girl
She who sees couples walk casually by on sidewalks through her window
She who sees photos posted on IG of people alone…but they are not selfies
Is anyone else really alone, girl?
And now you who thought you were brave
A shadow walker, you said,
Meet the One who asks as you shimmy alone in your kitchen to Afrobeats
“Don’t you wanna dance with somebody?”
But you listen here alone girl
You who make daily calls to check on people because you can
You who is a first responder of all their pain
You who knows we are all alone, really
You think you aren’t made for this?
Men may live and die alone, revered
While she is forgotten, a pity
She who swims deep with whales mystifying folks when she comes up for air
She who walks through valleys of her own shadows and flinches not
Come, let us be together alone, girl
Take deep inhales
Breathe in all your breathtaking solitude
Make more tea
Exhale before you sip on that hot mug of silence steaming in your hands
Pray for the one you know will come
to shimmy with you in aromatic kitchens
walk quietly beside you on sidewalks past strangers windows.
Pray they are also growing quietly more confident in their aloneness
Readying for the order to lift
Readying to see the new world in 20/20 vision
Readying like Rilke to become something
“…to become world, to become world…for another’s sake”
Until then my fierce alone girl
Be solitude
Opaque and undisputed
Light another candle
Become all flame
@colliemae