Alone Quotes

“I love the library.
My own personal book church.
Safety.

But I'm losing patience with fiction.
The challenges and triumphs of
fictional characters only make me
feel worse about myself.
Novels end nicely and neatly
with all obstacles overcome.
Loose ends tied up.

My own story just keeps unraveling
with depressing predictability.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I love the library.
My own personal book church.
Safety.
-Maddie”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“There is something about poetry being nonfiction
but not factual.
The most intimate personal thoughts —things people would never dream
of saying out loud in middle school— right there on the page in black and white.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“Empty houses aren’t home.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“The sky is the color of bruises. Matches the hue of my new mood.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“Once again the library saves the day.
Provides everything I could
ever hope to learn...

(Back in civilization
when I grow up
I think I might want
to be a librarian.)
-Maddie”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“maybe God
sends us nightmares
so our living reality
doesn't seem so bad
when we wake up
-Maddie”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“A few month ago
I would have jumped at the offer
of an indefinite vacation.
Now I long for
the predictable regularity of classes.
The comfort of having a daily routine.
A place to be and people to notice
when I'm absent.
-Maddie”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I know I won’t waste another day agonizing over
what I can’t control.
I am going to make sure
my one wild and precious life is spent living as fully and completely as I can
and if that means living alone with an aging rottweiler
and eating canned food
until I’m an old woman
so be it.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“It’s not that I don’t grieve the loss
of my family or feel the acute emptiness of being so alone.
It’s just that my grief and loneliness
are no longer burdened by hope
that things will change.
I can’t control the future and
I’m powerless over everything except what’s happening right in front of me.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“maybe God
sends us nightmares so our living reality doesn’t seem so bad when we wake up
until we wake up
and remember
we are living in a nightmare we can’t escape
except by going
to sleep”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“whether God pays any attention to my little life.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I have faced impossible obstacles. Conquered every challenge thrown at me.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“(...) alone in this place
yet Mother Nature insists on optimism.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I love the library.
My own personal book church. Safety.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“If a birthday falls in the forest
but there’s no one there to celebrate do we still get older?”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“The challenges of fires and floods
can be overcome with courage and wit, but this feeling of loss and loneliness might just prove too great to endure even for this Challenge Girl.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“optimism satisfaction pride
Unfamiliar feelings take root in the soil of my tired soul.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“Can one lone girl be a civilization all by herself?”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“warm breeze
snow melting
trees and rooftops drip
drip drip
open windows
fresh air
buds sprout on limbs
crocus crack through icy earth i can’t help but feel hopeful”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“loneliness and insanity are twin houseguests and
it’s hard to entertain one without inviting the other in as well”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“Exhausted from winning
a race
I didn’t even know
I was running.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“my muscles are confused
but
my mind is steady”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“They have come.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I keep my foot pressed on the brake
Slide the gearshift into drive
and inch down the street.

I circle the block four times before
I feel confident enough to risk
George's life too.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“If Emily Dickinson’s hope is a thing with feathers then there are many flocks of hope flying overhead nesting noisily in the trees and hedges all around.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“Reconciliation”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“It’s just that my grief and loneliness are no longer burdened by hope that things will change. I can’t control the future and I’m powerless over everything except what’s happening right in front of me. If rescue comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone

“I find Emily Dickinson. The book falls open. “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - Well, that’s true.”
― Megan E. Freeman, Alone