your belly and your loneliness
loneliness -
you enter my house like a mote of dust,
floating on sunbeam-air.
slowly you colonize my unaware places -
the floor beneath my bed, the shelf above my fridge,
the cracks and crevices between the things that are,
& the things that may become.
when I am vulnerable
in the soft, still, quiet, naked twilight,
you climb into my bed and curl your cold fingers around
my neck.
when loneliness has her hands around your neck,
the best thing to do is
lie very still and breathe -
or better yet, JUMP UP, shake your bones, move your arms above your head like holly noodles,
until you wake the audacity to
crawl
across your linoleum floor covered with fairy dust,
and sink into your bathtub -
maybe turn on the tap, or maybe don’t
maybe lie there against the cold, hard, ceramic,
until -
you feel the boundary between your skin and the bathtub blur,
and your mind expand to fill the shape of its curved walls -
hesitantly at first, and then quickly POUNCE upon the open space you’re created
and laugh.
look down at the round flesh of your belly,
place your hands on the soft places, and
rejoice at the friends you have;
your belly and your loneliness
there are worse companions
with which to walk into the night.
[Instead of writing a contextual explanation of this poem at the end, as I usually do, I decided to record a spoken word reading of this poem which you can watch here. I often think that the written word lacks some of the aliveness that can only be conveyed by its oral telling. So this is my attempt to offer you the life of this poem in a more visceral, visual way. I do think its interesting that throughout each of our lifetimes, we will all encounter loneliness. The oxymoron of loneliness is that we all feel it, together. So, next time loneliness has her hand on your neck, maybe wonder at all the people who are feeling the same thing as you are at that very moment. Maybe feel some kinship with them. Or don’t. Or laugh, or shake your bones, or call a friend, or sit with your belly and your loneliness as you embrace the night, together.
Read the rest of my poetry here. All my links.
xo, Dev.]
© 2024 Dev Shirah Suchin. All rights reserved.
