“Loneliness” by Lexie Stevens
I want someone to talk to.
I talked to my grandmother the other night about what our greatest fears were.
I love knowledge and let her know that if I got a disease such as Alzheimer’s, I would be destroyed.
I pride myself on my brain and how my intellect gets me through everyday life.
She tsked at me and said loneliness is the only universal fear.
I asked what she meant, but deep down I knew.
I feel it.
It’s purple.
Bright and angry.
The ability to look at someone else and know you belong there
– that’s the ticket.
That’s what makes it all worth it.
I think about myself now and how I feel.
I took advantage of the easy access I used to have to someone else’s feelings.
I knew then that I had something special and didn’t care.
Now,
I am sitting on a shore surrounded by smiling families in a black sweatshirt on a stone bench.
I hear the waves and I smell the salt and wish for nothing more,
but to disappear.
I wish I’d brought something to write with on the lonely journey.
I wish I’d said sorry sooner.
I feel like I have goosebumps on the inside of my soul.
I want to scratch at the pain or burn it from my skin.
I want to remember the faint touches and feel the hands that were once in mine.
I dread the life in which I would live without the companionship in which I so adamantly long for.
What’s the point in having knowledge with no one to teach?