By-Avani Purty

  I’ve tasted loneliness on my lips

Often when I cry myself to sleep at night;

Wrapping my arms around myself

To drive away the chill that emptiness leaves behind.

I’ve lain awake at night

With an ache in my heart, and fingertips

Tingling with the urge to cut and maim

What they made and have regretted since.

I’ve dug half-moons on my palms

With my blunt nails

Trying to stop the water that fills my eyes

Ever so often and makes me taste

All that I do not possess.

I’ve felt loneliness in my ire

And loneliness in self-destruction.

I’ve felt it for so long that tonight

Under a lonely sky of stars

I do not wish for the moon to shine down.

Tonight I do wish to be left alone:

Alone as I watch the trickle of deep red

Run down my wrists and palms

To a lonely house of pain and walls.

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This poem has been published in the book 'The Last Flower Of Spring'. Buy the paperback copy on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y9sydnxn