The One

This poem was released to a few key friends after it was written, and a few months ago to my email subscribers. Now, almost two years later, it’s time to publish it here.

It was written the spring after mom died, as I processed what it was like to see my siblings receive the support of spouses while I navigated the details of grieving, alone. It was a time of feeling abandoned on two key fronts. Someone I was growing to love had disappeared with hardly a “fare thee well”, and my mom died suddenly soon after with no “fare thee well.”

This February marks the two year anniversary of mom dying. There is no happy ending for me, but there is also no ending yet. That is the odd thing about being left behind: the lack of endings. Just a beginning of what ended.

This poem is an ode to that earthquake of reckoning with loneliness and heartbreak.

The One

I don't know if I'm allowed 

Someone that's all my own

All my friends are ones I share

With everyone else I know

Single people are often told

To enjoy the good life of freedom

But what is the good of getting to be

Someone unimportant? 

There's no one that ever needs me

There's no one who sees my life

Not like that kind of witness you have

When paired up as husbands and wives 

No one to get the yogurt

While the other picks out the bread

No one to wake up at midnight

When there's noise in the kitchen again

No one who knows how often

The peonies my mom gave me are used,

As a gravestone by which to weep

Of the loss that pulled out my roots

Sometimes I hate being seen

Then I wonder why no one is there

I marvel how a flower can show me

That somehow, something cares

That even a rock can cry out

In wondering worship and praise

Though quite blocky and stocky it sits there

As the foundation of earth and fire,

But somethings are not a someone

Mankind must have its "own" kind

What if he would like my thinking

And I think he's best of all?

It seems true I'm alone and un-plucky

Though many will say it isn't

I don't think they get to say that

Surrounded by love of their peasants

There's some who think it's my fault

My sister thinks that I'm picky

But I went through fire and water

For a man who was slightly icky

I know what it means to stay true

To have courage in the face of fear

To love when there's no spicy feelings

Then to give up what I held dear

There's no red bow on this story

No little blue box with a ring

Just a girl in a little white cottage

With a half joke, and a hope that I sing

-L. Raine

Photo up top by Sergey Gorban on Unsplash