LOVE'S LONELINESS

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Submitted Date 06/10/2019
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Love's Loneliness
Age 24, Durham County, North Carolina, 1968
-- This is one poem, in an autobiographical series of poems, I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --

I did not expect this --
to love so deeply
to be so alone

my new wife wants to know
where I've been
but she knows
I've come directly
from my eight-hour job
that takes nine hours
a job I've promised to do
for another year

I work at a kindergarten
teaching children and
taking care of babies
who often have diarrhea
then I mop the floors after closing

"I'm worried that you don't love me,"
she says as I fall into our couch
"Tell me what's wrong?"

"I'm tired," I say
"And I feel like I got
another cold from the kids."

"No, it's more than that,
you just won't tell me.
Is it someone else?
I won't be angry,
I just need to know."

"There is no one."

"But do you really love me?"

"Yes, I really love you."

"I mean really?"

"Yes."

"I mean really, really?"

"Yes"

"Really and truly?"

"Yes, I really and truly love you"

so I change the subject
I get her to talk about herself
problems with teachers
problems with her boss at her part-time job
problems with other students at college
problems with her family
problems with her father

then we go to bed
sometimes we make love
afterward she cries into her pillow
and I hold her

six hours later
I wake and it starts again

Comments

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  • Ceara 4 years, 9 months ago

    I did not expect this -- to love so deeply to be so alone
    Great opening. I feel like I would like to know more about what being alone means to the narrator. Such a poignant poem over all.

    • Rick Doble 4 years, 9 months ago

      Good suggestion -- I'll think about how to expand a description of my emotion. It is the companion poem to the one before this one which might help explain more..

  • No name 4 years, 9 months ago

    Insecurity can really take over in the grind.

    • Rick Doble 4 years, 9 months ago

      I thought that if you loved someone it would make them secure -- instead, it meant that she was vocal about her insecurity