In the quiet corners of the room,
She sits and thinks, a lonely bloom.
Shy and introverted, often misunderstood,
She feels like no one really could.

Bullied and teased, she struggled to fit in,
But her love for math and schoolwork was her win.
With each passing day, she found her way,
And slowly, she began to glow and sway.

In 7th grade, she found a friend,
And together, they laughed until the end.
But the joy was short-lived, as she realized,
That the friendship was toxic and needed to be revised.

You molded me into an inveterate lover of you.
The hands of a sculptor, you created me anew.
So that when I’m lying next to you, and we’re singing the blues.
I get to see our voices mix into clouds of intricate hues.

I feel like you planned out this ruse,
Blueprints stacked and sprawled in your room.
Plans to make me inveterate lover of you.

I looked through old albums
after our mother was gone.
There were so many to sort!

An enormous journey
through paper and keepsakes.
A memoir of ephemera.

It was the few empty pages
in some that got to me.
No more reminiscences
to be added and cherished.

As it turned out, I didn’t come apart.
I turned back to the photographs
and mementos that were present,
finding refuge in the stories
chronicled there on the wordless pages.

Here comes the lonely night again

Comes to visit me like a long-lost friend

Lonely together like so many times

Across my face, we will draw the lines

I am so deathly cold deep here inside

With only the night into which confide

Wraps me up like a hunter in a blind

Waiting here, waiting for the killing time

Waiting for a sunny day to finally arrive

Just trying another night to survive

I keep anticipating the night

My safe harbor I hide away in the night