I’m a lover of being alone

and I have come to be continuously disappointed

in the company of others.

It wasn’t always this way

but as we get molded into things

that cease to be alive

and we escape on a mattress full of grapefruit peals

and Chinese food containers

and movies with the same ending

getting away

gets old

Escaping

used to be easy

but now it takes so much more

to forget.

I don’t want to be known.

I don’t want to be understood.

I don’t wish for a better time.

Amnesia

is preferable

and I think of escaping, life

Sleep

is what I look forward to

a little death

every night

when I cease to exist

when there is nothing

and what beautiful nothingness.

It’s 6 in the afternoon

when I go for a walk

in the woods.

I feel like a zombie

numb and awkward

entering the wrong habitat.

There is no one there

and the trees are making sounds

sharp, groaning, cracking, sounds

the leaves are moist, yellow, and brown

falling to the ground, to the sound of silent music

the air is damp

when I start walking

and the red backed beetle

looks up at me

spiders weave their webs

and the falling sunlight flickers through the trees

in a different world

Suddenly…

I want to see family

and I leave the woods and visit home

and home is happy to see me

the dog pees on the rug

my parents ask me how I’m doing

and I’m doing very well

because I went for a walk in the woods.