I Want To Be Alone Tonight

By

Tonight, I want to be alone, I don’t want to be surrounded by the noise of people who don’t understand me, the noise of their thoughts and opinions and the noise of their judgments.

Tonight I want to be alone with my thoughts, I want to try to listen to them and try to figure out why they can be so cruel, why can’t they just be kind more often and why do they have to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Tonight I want to be alone so I don’t have to force myself to laugh at people’s jokes; the same jokes, the jokes they tell to hide their pain.

Tonight I want to be alone with my sadness, I want to allow myself to feel, I want to allow myself to be weak, I want to allow myself to be vulnerable and I want to let the tears run down my face without wiping them off.

Tonight I want to be alone with my broken heart, I don’t want to try to fix it or heal it, I want it to bleed tonight; I want it to just do whatever it wants to do without trying too hard to shut it off or guard it or protect it. Tonight I want my heart to breathe instead of suffocating it.

Tonight I want to be alone with my mirror. I want to have the courage to look at it. I want to look at my sad eyes and feel sorry myself, I want to look at it and wonder where my smile has gone and I want to break it even if the shattered pieces hurt me.

Tonight I want to be alone and I don’t want anyone to reach me. I will turn off my phone; I don’t want that drunk text or that indifferent call or these pictures flooding my timeline. Tonight I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not, I don’t want to go out of my way for anyone and I don’t want to answer everyone who reaches out to me only when they feel like it.

Tonight I want to be alone with my sad songs, I want to be able to listen to them without people asking me to change them or telling me I’m depressing. Tonight I want to hurt with these singers, I want to feel their excruciating pain that triggered every word in the song, and I want to sing it out loud, I want to sing their pain and mine and I want to stop and rewind my favorite lines and turn my pain into art.

Tonight I don’t want to be OK, I don’t want to be fine and I don’t want to tough it out or be a fighter. I want to let my emotions win tonight, I want to set them free and I’m not going to numb them. Tonight I don’t want to be numb. I want to be sensitive and fragile and too much to handle.

Tonight I want to be alone, but only for tonight, I’m allowing myself one night to feel everything I’ve been fighting, but tomorrow, I’m going to wake up, put my boxing gloves on, put a smile on my face and pretend like tonight never happened.