To Be Alone

If you sit and ask yourself

What it means to be alone,

You’ll most likely

Come up with more than a few answers.

Maybe being alone is

When you move to a foreign country

And nothing is your own,

Not the customs

Not the monuments

Not the craters in the earth.

But it’s okay, because

The sun, and the stars, and the moon

Are all the same,

And they will always be yours.

Being alone might be the moment

You step forward to make a place

For yourself,

Despite the disapproval of

Those who,

Naturally, “know what’s best”,

And leaving your old decisions behind.

But you still have

Your character, and your integrity,

And the optimism to walk on.

Being alone could be

The feeling you get when it seems

As though everyone has

Given up on you.

You’ve gone so far,

And they know it.

But they’re waiting, if you let them.

Being alone may be the fact

That everyone has moved on

Without you.

Leaving you in the dust,

They achieve and conceive,

And you’re still stuck here.

But you have your

Smile and your dreams,

And the hope you’ll harbor

Forever.

Maybe it’s when someone dies

And you’re now on your own—

But even then, you have

 The books you read,

And the songs you love,

And the arms that will hold you

Even when you’re scared to feel.

No, being alone is not death,

Or goals, leaving, or crying.

Being alone is when you feel everything

And choose to feel nothing.

So you push them away.

Being alone is not fear, or pain,

It is a choice.

All the songs and the books and the poems and the sighs will not help you.

Even the stars are beyond your reach,

When you decide to be alone.