Alone is the moment when
you lie diagonally across
your queen-sized bed,
the first big purchase
in your adult life.

You sleep behind a shoji screen
in a makeshift bedroom carved from
a living room in a graystone apartment
that you share with two housemates.

Your internship ended, and you
didn’t go home. Now, you’re temping,
and then comes your very shitty
first real job.

You have bought yourself
a box turtle, a lizard,
and two tree frogs so

you’ll have someone to take care of.
Everything else dies, but the turtle
is a survivor. A year from now, your
boyfriend will move here, you’ll both
move to the other side of town.

Two years from now, you’ll get married.
He’ll love your turtle, too, make ramps
for him all around the room while
you’re at work, at your second,
and much less shitty job.

But for now, you are alone.
You are with people (and a turtle),
but you are alone. You are 24 years old,
and really, you slept better on
your friend’s couch, when you were

still between things, trying to make a plan.

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For the PAD Challenge, Day 23. Prompt: an alone poem.