I spent a week alone once
at the cabin,
the kids all back to school,
even the ocean seemed
quieter.
I had a plan,
pen and paper,
the straightforward task
of plotting out
my life.
I should have known
it was fruitless,
that first night
when I ate a box
of ginger snaps,
one by one,
each time a separate trip
to the pantry,
pledging it was
my last.
I read six novels
that week,
digging
for a vibration
not my own.
You think solitude
will be peaceful
but you don’t expect
the immutable expanse
of the stillness
to be such
a bully.