Frayed Feisty Threads - Book IV

Lonely

I tried to call you
         twice tonight
                   It wasn't important -
I just wanted to hear your voice
         and give you a surprise.
I was lonely
         For you
and I wanted
         to talk
I am disappointed, but you couldn't
         have known I was
         going to call.

It's an empty feeling
         and a full feeling -
                   a bottle is all stoppered up
                   inside me with wanting
                             to talk
                                       to you
                   and if I did, I would
                   let out all that has built up
and replace it with love
                   and the sound
                   of your voice.
Can you understand
how I feel?

I want to write
and tell you I love you
         and that I miss you.
I want to say
things that are bubbling
         up from my heart,
but I know
on the phone,
         I would only say
         regular routine things.
Just to hear you talk
But on paper, with a pen,
         my heart usually talks
         as it is doing now!

It is saying I am lonely and empty inside
         without the warmth of your voice
         to fill me.
Over and over, it sighs
                   "I miss you",
         a very gentle rhythm it has -
                   funny, it goes to the beat
                             of my heart!

It flows through me and surrounds me,
         leaving me
                   hollow
                             and
                                       empty.
It is a yearning for love
         that leaves me
                   feeling vacant.

And love can be
         just the sound of
                   your voice
I wish you would call.

I write this swiftly
         and despairingly -
knowing that you will not call,
yet, hoping against hope
         that you will.

I feel this is a poem, yet I can't
         take the time to make the lines
                   even.
Read it
                   as a poem.
The phone rang -
         it startled me in the stillness;
It wasn't you.

Why not, I am saying, why not?
my mind answers - always I
          have my logic to reason
                   with me.
But my mind doesn't comfort me
         because it does not have
                   compassion.
And it does not fill
                   the
                             emptiness
                                       inside.

Composition Information ▼

The note at the bottom of this piece, clearly in my handwriting says "Written during Psych Affiliation 0/12/1970-11/23/1970; I was a nursing student during this timeframe at Danville State Hospital in Danville, PA and my boyfriend / fiance' was a recent graduate of American International University in Springfield, MA.