Guarding Alone

I write and read books, safety words,

material shields

from growing crowds as I sit in the corner chair surrounded by backpack, jackets, layers of words,

in the front and early, because this is for my friend, who I’ve begun to suspect does not know me anymore—

It is easy to slip into the lonely side of alone,

these are not my people but an evening out, human hearts in need

of the same thing as me, and

yet nothing close enough.

I do not speak their language, and though we try, I do not think they want mine.

(Does anyone really speak anymore)

they came here for a good time and my language is slower and somehow harsher still.

when I speak theirs en masse, I do not like myself later;

when I speak theirs one-to-one, sometimes we approach hearts, but in this place, impossible.

this friend who does not know me—we thought we used to maybe we did before we became—asked me the other day, who to call to know how I’m doing if I cannot answer.

and I could not answer.

the other side of alone—Only I can answer.

so these layers of words are my guards to ground me, remind me that maybe I am not so lost, that I have others where I belong, who speak my language and keep me warm.

these words are hands on my anxious chest, gentle pressure like he laid on hers, as for them I performed my group language too loud and too louder.

she knows, her body knows, and she listened to it. I am learning that, so she was beautiful.

so am I, that makes me then,

and books of words are better than most, like hands, those must come from a love, a trust, another.

And I am afraid.

those who listen to their bodies, guts, chest, tears, aches, they are often the innocent faces we lessers use to hold our own churning and low-shoved doubts.

the innocents cannot hurt us, they will be the home for our displaced self-hatred.

those moments of innocent listening—to their own—those are therefore the barest of vulnerabilities.

In their unguardedness let us be their protectors,

honor that most sacred of essays into the beauty in the painful call of truth,

guard those moments in those innocents.

When they surface they will prove our wisdoms.