Alone, Together in a Crowded Room...

This is one of my favorite poems. My words, like my paintings, come directly from little moments in my life. They are moments of self-reflection. Opportunities that present themselves when I need to learn something: how to love, how to let go, how to be a good friend. At times, it is easier to accept being alone because we have no one else to worry about. But I think that loneliness is just a symptom of wanting more...wanting to love more, wanting to be more, more than what we are, more than where we are. This momentum shapes us in so many ways and at the end of the journey this want for life is what we will most be proud of.

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Alone, Together in a Crowded Room

I miss you.

I don't know why.

How can you possibly miss someone you see everyday?

How can you possibly miss someone that was never yours?

Shared dreams connect us,

to be someone,

to be with someone,

to belong to each other.

But we are all alone in a crowded room.

Strangers and friends,

lost in the hurt,

lost in the present,

lost in familiar surroundings.

I am the same.

We remain unchanged.

But we are always changing,

always looking to the horizon,

forever in motion,

looking and searching for each other,

but gazing at the moon.

If we look back and remember...

Remember the little moments...

The moments when the world was just right.

We just might turn into pillars of salt.

Salty tears wiped from my eyes,

staining your fingers as you touch my cheek.

Lips hot on my neck.

Did I forget to tell you that you are loved?

Did I remember to listen to you when you said it to me?

The sand hastens to collect.

Time slips away with every sunrise.

But today is a cloudy day and I can only hope

that the clouds hide the loneliness I feel,

how empty I am without you,

a vessel with nothing to hold

(to have and to hold).

I am searching for my purpose.

We are yearning to belong,

to be with someone,

to be someone.

Shared dreams connect us.

But we are alone in a crowded room.

Lights dim, the crowd thins, the night is over,

and all I have to look forward to

is the sunrise on the horizon

and you gazing at the moon.

-- Millie D.

Night Lights at La Feniche, M.Donovan