Hope Alone

I know I'm different, and I've learned what that means in the real world. At first it seemed like the end of the world, but strangely enough it doesn't hurt so much anymore. I've become accustomed to the loneliness. And that scares me more than words can say. 

It usually seeps in when I should be sleeping. When I'm by myself in my room and I can't sleep. I think that's because some of my best memories were born from the late night and early morning hours. Not so anymore.

Most nights I lie in bed listening to country love songs on Pandora, wishing. Except I'm not sure what I'm wishing for. Maybe that one of those cowboys will find me and take me away to the country. Don't worry, I know not to get my hopes up. Maybe I'm wishing that someday I'll live in a big city and somehow I won't have to worry about money anymore... I think I'm losing it. Or maybe that I'll travel to Italy and meet a charming man and we'll quickly become best friends and then realize we're in love. Yeah, I'm definitely losing it. 

Really, I think I'm just wishing that I could stop feeling like this. I just have become so used to it, I don't know how. 

The loneliness is so much like the pain that sometimes I can't tell them apart. It stays dormant for so long I think it's gone, and suddenly it sweeps in and overwhelms me, knocks me off my feet.

Like it did today. It's my grandma's eighty-seventh birthday. Or it would be if she was still alive. When I think about dying it doesn't feel so scary or lonely because I know she's already there. 

Someone, please, just take this loneliness away.