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The Dynamics of Lonely by Nikita Gill

On a midnight walk, in a forest full of stars, I reconsider the way lonely works.

How it gets into the bones of children who grow up to be adults with abandonment issues because of an absent parent.

How it hardens the hearts of people who use it to block someone out of a group.

How the cruelest places use lonely as a punishment through solitary confinement.

And how we spend our days watching clocks in forlorn buildings, waiting for when we can go home to the warmth of love.

All this to divide us and conquer. A wolf left alone in the wild is easy prey, too. That's why wolves live in packs.

They know that community keeps every wolf healthier and safer, each one fulfilling a duty to the other, protecting and nurturing their young to be better.

Our strength then lies in numbers. We are wildflowers, designed to weather storms and grow in places no one expects us, rising and thriving together.

— Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill (Page 57)

Art Sanctuary by Nikki Giovanni

I would always choose to be the person running rather than the mob chasing I would prefer to be the person laughed at rather than the teenagers laughing I always admired the men and women who sat down for their rights And held in disdain the men and women who spat on them Everyone deserves Sanctuary a place to go where you are safe Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing to open their hearts as well as their eyes

— Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni (Page 87)

Who am I? by Kishwar Naheed

I am not the woman selling shoes and socks. I am the one You buried alive in a wall And became guiltless as the breeze. You did not know that brick and mortar Cannot bury voices.

I am the one Whom you buried under the load of custom. You did not know That light never fears darkness.

I am the one From whose lap you took flowers And returned thorns and embers. You did not know That fragrance cannot be stopped by chains.

(tr. by Baidar Bakht & Derek M. Cohen)

— Salt in Wounds by Kishwar Naheed (Page 44)

Singing Everything by Joy Harjo

Once there were songs for everything, Songs for planting, for growing, for harvesting, For eating, getting drunk, falling asleep, For sunrise, birth, mind-break, and war. For death (those are the heaviest songs and they Have to be pried from the earth with shovels of grief). Now all we hear are falling-in-love songs and Falling apart after falling-in-love songs and The earth is leaning sideways And a song is emerging from the floods And fires. Urgent tendrils lift toward the sun. You must be friends with silence to hear. The songs of the guardians of silence are the most powerful— They are the most rare.

— An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo (Page 53)

The Winter After Your Death by Sharon Olds

The long bands of mellow light across the snow narrow slowly. The sun closes her gold fan and nothing is left but black and white– the quick steam of my breath, the dead accurate shapes of the weeds, still, as if pressed in an album. Deep in my body my green heart turns, and thinks of you. Deep in the pond, under the thick trap door of ice, the water moves, the carp hangs like a sun, its scarlet heart visible in its side.

— The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds (Knopf poetry series -- 13.) (Page 24)

I Worried by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

— Devotions by Mary Oliver (Page 59)

stay strong through your pain grow flowers from it you have helped me grow flowers out of mine so bloom beautifully dangerously loudly bloom softly however you need just bloom

- to the reader

— Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (Page 158)

Life by Amanda Gorman

Life is not what is promised. But what is sought. These bones, not what is found, But what we've fought. Our truth, not what we said, But what we thought. Our lesson, all we have taken & all we have thought.

— Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (Page 62)

What You Missed that Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade, #poetry by #BradAaronModlin

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.

After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather's

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

— Everyone at this party has two names by Brad Aaron Modlin (Page 13)

It's the Season I Often Mistake, #poetry by #AdaLimón

Birds for leaves, and leaves for birds. The tawny yellow mulberry leaves are always goldfinches tumbling across the lawn like extreme elation. The last of the maroon crabapple ovates are song sparrows that tremble all at once. And today, just when I could not stand myself any longer, a group of field sparrows, which were actually field sparrows, flew up into the bare branches of the hackberry and I almost collapsed: leaves reattaching themselves to the tree like a strong spell for reversal. What else did I expect? What good is accuracy amidst the perpetual scattering that unspools the world.

— Hurting Kind by Ada Limon (Page 56)