I finally finished a poem I started several days ago that was in response to the prompt to write about "under the surface." I had the hardest time with the last stanza on this one, but it finally came to me this afternoon.
“Perfect Solitude”
I have lived alone a long time.
The solitude pleases me
and gives me room
to be myself in a way
I cannot be around others.
Alone, I need not shield
my vulnerability and fears,
need not contain my anger,
need not wear the mask
I feel I must at other times.
Alone at home, I revel in
the freedom of knowing that
the only needs and desires
to be met are mine, that here
as nowhere else, I am in control.
There is no dissention,
no conflict, no need for the
compromises that left me feeling
compromised, as there were
when I lived with someone else.
And yet, beneath my
satisfying seclusion,
loneliness runs like a
subterranean river
that I have forgotten is there.
It surfaces unexpectedly,
spoiling my contentment
and making me wish for
the impossible, before it finally
disappears back underground,
leaving me to wonder
when it will rise again,
and if it always will.
But I have made my choice,
and if it is not a perfect one –
I pay a price I’d rather not -
it is the one promising most
freedom to be who I really am.
And so I make that choice again:
I will live alone, because
my solitude pleases me.
by Carol Berger
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