The Times I've Been Alone

I lay alone in a hospital bed,

Pain throbbing up to my head;

Those who served me did not feel

My aloneness, head to heal.

I stood alone in a crowded place,

Friendless, without elbow space;

Building walls with garlic breath,

A walking vacuum, much like death.

I ran alone in woods to hide,

Guilty was I- I cried;

Only God in heaven knew,

Cursed I felt for a tantrum I threw.

I stood alone in  a moral dare,

Would I steal without a care?

I couldn’t do the challenge to sin,

And so my conscience fenced me in.

I stayed alone in the family car,

Sand and sun, near and far;

The sun I had loved far too much,

My skin was burning to the touch.

I sulked alone outside the gates,

When all my friends were having dates;

No one heard me as I moaned,

Refused, dateless, all alone.

There seemed those who always had friends,

Through fault or fate, I met other ends.

Yet I often wondered how it would be,

If others could look through the eyes of ME.

                  For Conrad, February, 1975

(When I tried to write poetry for my son in 

  high school a few years back)