Thank you, Rebel, for reminding me the beauty of one’s own strength that comes from being alone.
“Society is afraid of alone. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if, after awhile, nobody is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.” –Tanya Davis.
Wherever you may find yourself: in a town of less than 8,000 where breaths freeze against windows into oxygenated icicles or one in 8.3 million where the buildings are so tall, you can barely see beyond the door frames. Loneliness exists in crowds and in rooms full of only you. Loneliness exists underground and flying above clouds. Shared meals can be lonely and so can celebrations.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and books written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” –Rainer Maria Rilke
Why must I exist like this? Can’t I just ignore the bother of my bones? If I stop looking into my reflection, will I forget about the stranger living inside? What makes me a poet? What if I’m not the poet I told you I am? How can I lift weights to grow muscles in my heart and strengthen my scars into fierce survivors? Have I lost one more chance at love because of because of all those times I pushed it away? Will I ever accept my gender? Now that I’ve spoken on the discombobulation of my body, how do I proceed? Even though it’s clean, I still fear my blood as though it is an enemy; why? How do I trust another to accept the disrobe of my body? How do I trust myself to accept the disrobe of my body? Does this ever get easier? Or will I ever understand why/how I have remained so long?If I can just hold onto these words, like hands, keeping me safe and balanced. This language will help me to cross the street. These letters will dine with me at night and read alongside me. This dialect will be my guide. My musical accompaniment. This loneliness is my band-aid, preparing every part of me to heal so that when another enters, I will be ready.
Aimee Herman 
Healing is contagious, this is the year of inverted mountains: things to climb down into. caves and skin will be examined/restless & pregnant, old selves all along it/shadows and light will draw more and more momentum. do you hear the echo coming out, it’s your married groans of pain and joy merging in your guts. whatever you do, don’t move, don’t get up, don’t go anywhere, don’t even think about it.
Here’s the line that does it for me: “If I stop looking into my reflection, will I forget about the stranger living inside?”
If you can make friends with that stranger, little sister, you will never be alone.
I’m working it on, Mentor.
A very good video. I like verbal poetry. Her kind voice spoke with logic and true. I appreciate your opinion on a important topic. It is okay to be alone sometime. Allowed us to go where we desire and gather our thoughts and life.