True loneliness like falling asleep at the sleepover before everyone else.
You’re in orange pajamas with hardwood cold
seeping into the threads of your spinal cord.
You’ve got goosebumps.
You hear the girl next to you breathe softly,
you envy her long hair and peace that sits under her eyes,
You miss her. You wish she was up
to speak about class or the movie or her whole life
one last time–
then her peace would, maybe, finally be yours.
The dusty blank smell of the floor
and the chapter book she’s read is sending
echos inside your skull.
You wish someone was up,
you wish the other girls liked to hold hands
in the night to stop the aloneness,
like a wire of beating hearts that called
out for care or speech.
You wish there was a cave filled with
beautiful gems and crystals that
chimed softly in this foreign house,
wish there was a fairy that glowed
blue and sat in sleepless girls palms.
You wish the floor were heated like mom’s
back, you wish being last didn’t mean losing.
You wish for it all till eyelashes
sew thoughts shut and
sink you into the dark.
Emerson Keen is a senior from Decatur High School. Though she’s farther away from death than she is near to it, she’s overall pretty sure life is about love, and a couple other things like reading and laughing. In addition to writing poems instead of doing homework, she is fond of gardening, listening to music, and Ada Limon. She is a district winner for Young Georgia authors, and is perpetually grateful to her past and future teachers, as well as her friends and family for their love.