I Feel Most Alone in Sterile Supermarkets

Poetry Collection No. 6, includes Amnesia and Giving Up The Chill.

Hey friend, 

This month’s collection is hard to characterise. It’s about authenticity and invisibility, the stark sense of loneliness in sterility and wondering why we forget. I guess it’s about how we show up in the world, and trusting that God made us, memory gaps, idiosyncrasies, and all. 

Thank you for reading. Sharing poetry feels like going out in winter in a bikini. I’m so grateful for this little community and the kind words my words find themselves among. 

Photo by Kristin Brown on Unsplash. 

Giving Up The Chill 

I always thought I was chill. Let me rephrase, I spent a long time trying to look like the chill girl, the cool girl, the easygoing girl. But I’m not. I’m enthusiastic, passionate, restless. Yet day after day I deliver speech, Why am I like this, Lord? Look at all these gentle women, meek women, quiet women, women who don’t bust out of their chair, ten million schemes busting out their heads. 

God made a triangle but I said, Wouldn’t a circle be more godly?

But who did He actually make me to be?

Amnesia 

I wonder why we forget the first five years?

Why is no one worried about this?

I mean, it’s a mercy to forget being born, 

nappy changes, toilet training,

but what is so important, it overrides 

the need for explicit memories?

Is it a mercy for parents, time

to get their act together? 

Like, when long-term memories start– 

someone has made breakfast. 

Maybe the thousand repetitions

asking and receiving help, 

carve the ability to trust deep

in the soul before pride interferes.

Maybe this is the work of a lifetime, 

and it needs a head start.

I Feel Most Alone in Sterile Supermarkets

“In some ego-filled late night crowd, 

it seems to be where I feel most alone,” 

Zach Bryan, Burn Burn Burn 

I feel most alone in Kmart,

amongst the Christmas jingles.

I feel most alone driving in a new suburb, 

dressed in Maccas, Caltex, and Bunnings.

I feel most alone in sterile supermarkets,

the same fruit, the same store. 

I feel most alone scrolling targeted

ads. I’m a 30-35 year old mother 

who needs comfortable shoes. 

It’s the same everywhere, 

I could be anywhere.

I am no one. 

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks musing about my one-sided conversations with self-help authors.

You can read previous poetry collections here:  

A Cloud Prescription | Nice Girls Don’t Get Angry | What Discontent Says | More