alone.

The word is silently threatening,
leaving you to think as you tip
on the brink
of a shipwreck, about to be
A survivor in a sea of silent strangers

alone.

You wonder how a God you have been told is good
can leave you abandoned in this world,
without a friend,
“blessing” you with tears
That never end

alone.

She is an orange,
pleasing others with her aroma and her spice
as she is peeled apart,
broken in half again and again
by those who were supposed
to rewind time
and bind her shivering mind.

I found her shattered,
her shield, her orange peel,
spiraling around her,
a vortex of thoughts that she alone finds herself trapped within.

Words unspoken,
we traveled to the vortex, becoming unbroken
oceans of sisterly love diffusing like osmosis
Friends in the midst of life-long symbiosis

She is hippie skirts and coconut hair,
Snow White voice lilting the air.
Our worlds tilt in synchrony,
but my axis returns to gravity
as hers falls ever so slowly, until
Her world is upside down,
in her stardust she’ll drown,
remnants of burnt relationships
Once thought to be stars.
But her wing tips?
They’re scarred.

I cannot take the place
of her imperfect father, half-sisters, grammy, aunt, her everyone.
Isolated in a silent place called space,
A few prayers, but galaxies envelop her in despair,
Suffocating;
there’s no air in the infinite lair of King of Unfair
As he sits in his rocking chair,
Watching her misery peacefully,
unconcerned and completely aware
Of the tears he cut that’ll never repair
Alone. Where was God?
 

Cotton Candy is the other girl’s name.
No time to savor the flavor,
as she melts away,
leaving breadcrumbs
in case you should want to track her trail.

My sister-
My bug loving, stick collecting, creative little explorer, the earth waiting for her, Flora and Fauna’s daughter
Barefoot in the sun,
break out into a run,
Green Gables kind of gal.
but alone.

She is silver-green ivy
laced with lime and lavender,
her fanciful dreams winding their way around my family, molding us like clay, never to be the same
But strangest of strange,
she cannot grow on any house but our own.

She stays quiet,
invisible underneath her mask of normality
Hiding her regality
Her eyes raised to the stars,

The sweet ivy will wilt
if she should fall short
of perfection,
Continuous corrections and rejections
until she sees the ideal reflection
A daily inspection of personal infection,
She suffers from the self-deception
of unfounded imperfections

I climb ever higher, grasping star after star
and sometimes I wonder
if her paralyzing struggle
is from trying to live up to my name,
My claim to fame from playing the school game with 98% aim

Sometimes I am ashamed,
maybe I should take the blame
for the way she is stuck in the ground,
surrounded by other sprouts
Who don’t know she’s around
because their eyes refuse to reach the sound of her silent suffering,
somehow not spellbound
by the fairytale playground of her life.

Alone. Where was God?
 

Moving away, I am faced with new school,
new people,
new hallways,
new doors…
Knock knock. Hello?
People I barely know refuse to open up.
I return to the old passageways,
remember my past days,
hoping they’ll say they miss me always
Knock knock. Hello? People from my past
aren’t up to the apparently laborious task
of keeping me company

I return to Virginia, hoping I might have luck,
but to no avail,
I’m stuck in jail without a bail,
I can’t get out
And I start to doubt
That there is a God.

The earth makes revolutions,
I go through evolution,
learning to not resist when the world twists around and around.

On the walls I have become so accustomed to,
there hangs a mirror.
Within I see the girl I used to be-
Wilting, crowded, thirsty
Closer and closer I peer into the mirror,
nearer, but not clearer, until- BANG!.
No longer a mirror, but a window.
I hear a crescendo as the wind begins to blow
and my feet begin to quiver,
I get a shiver up my spine
as I peer outside and find there lies-

Hallways.
Doors.
Tiled school floors.
A flag waving to the world,
none waving back,
whipped by the wind,
following the lead of tyrannous strangers,
invisible, invincible, impossible
to catch their attention.
day after monotonous day,
hoping for just. One. wave. Back.  

I thought I was reliving my memories,
but it’s someone else I see- my twin.
We share “unbirthdays”, as Alice would say,
The friendship as mad as the hatter
My blood brother?
No, different fathers, different mothers

For though I threw that loneliness away like a boomerang,
though I thought it had fled,
it came back to me when he said,

“I am alone”

We live each others struggles in stunted replication,
took us awhile to find appreciation
for the way our lives work in synchronization,
a little off beat, a little strange,
still we wouldn’t change
the whip of our boomerang
no matter the pain
of memories being flung at us
when it circles back around our brain.

Alone. Where was God?

One starry night,
blackness above us and the orange girl with us,
he confessed his pain,
his strain, his struggle to find connections not muffled
Where were those people he was looking for?
Where was the deep, soul connection,
why did he never find that perfection,
but instead chemical confections
of fake people who reject him?
 

I saw a man cry that night.
And I wondered if maybe we were all broken,
our skins peeling off and
our anxieties circling round our brains,
trying to bring us shame,
we couldn’t find anyone to whom we could explain-

That no matter the human friends we find,
it’s only a glimmer, a shine,
a shadow of the light that’s really behind
the feeling we’re trying to find
in every person with whose stars we align.

No matter how I try to be the best friend
to the orange girl and my twin,
I cannot fit within
the God-shaped hole they live with.

I am not enough.

How stupid, how presumptuous, how arrogant, how terrible,
how selfish I was to think THAT I
could be the cure to their disease,
the cheddar to their cheese,
the thank you to their please,
their health returning by degrees.
It isn’t me.

And once again, I ask, WHERE ARE YOU GOD?

That quiet school girl,
new to Virginia is back in the mirror.
Sitting on my bed,
finally getting out recycled words from my head,
WHERE ARE YOU GOD?

I’m right here child.
God, God, where are you?
Please. I need somebody.
Something. Something to fill this this emptiness I feel with or without friends,
happiness, high self-esteem, 4-point-some-ridiculous- number GPA…
please...Why are you hiding from me?

Child, child, don’t cry.
I’ve told you I’ll dry every eye, wipe every tear
I promise I’m here
Do not tip-toe centimeter by centimeter, afraid to bump into something in the dark.
Run, come here.
I will not abandon you, I will not fail you.
I am the light, not the dancing shadow.
Alone. No more.

I’ve wandered enough, a vagabond,
traded back and forth like a game of ping-pong
I run, and
I find I am relieved,
lost in the love I couldn’t conceive
from my creator,
whose love will never unwind and string me along
until I’m lost in a maze of infinite webs and reverberations,
shadows of sound that I never found.
His voice is real and alive, and I don’t have to strive
for his friendship or his love.

We were created to need each other.
But the hints of satisfaction we find
when we’re together will never be enough
to quench the thirst we’ve been born with.
Always we’ll ask for just one more sip,
just one more drink
because we think
That’s what will satiate

No matter the things
we throw into the abyss-
Books, looks, bow on the string
Grades, friends, wedding rings-
We’re just a broken compass
A bird without its wings
When we keep pitching in various things

But
there’s a man my pitches somehow missed
He holds them in his hand, the weight dragging him down
But still, a smile, not a frown
A tear down his jawline
As his hand reaches mine
fingers fit into place, perfectly designed
The air smelling of unbroken clementines
As I walk with God,
Alone’s left behind