I Just Want to Be Alone

Every morning, I wear this skin

Like a borrowed coat I’m living in

There’s an old man behind my eyes

A faded ghost with a different life

The room is full, but I disappear

I carry every stranger near

Their weather breaking through my bones

And I can’t find a place called home

I turn the lights down low

But the feeling follows close

Even quiet has a sound

When everybody’s hurting now

I just want to be alone

No borrowed hearts, no ringing phones

No strangers pain, beneath my own

Let me breathe inside my bones

I just want to be alone

Not gone, not lost, just left alone

To find the shape my life has grown

And make this body feel like home

At the corner, a woman cries

I hear the flood behind her eyes

A man says, “Fine,” and walks away

I feel the words he couldn’t say

The subway shakes beneath the street

A hundred pulses, one heartbeat

I close my hands, I count to ten

The world comes rushing back again

I turn the lights down low

But the feeling follows close

Even silence isn’t still

When pain can climb the windowsill

I just want to be alone

No borrowed hearts, no ringing phones

No pain beneath my own

Let me breathe inside my bones

I just want to be alone

Not gone, not lost, just left alone

To find the shape my life has grown

And make this body feel like home

Maybe this life was given soon

Maybe I arrived before the room

But if this vessel carries me

There must be somewhere I can breathe

I’ll draw a line across the door

Not shutting out the world forevermore

Just long enough to hear one sound:

The heart beneath the noise I’ve found

I just want to be alone

No borrowed hearts, no ringing phones

No pain beneath my own

Let me breathe inside my bones

I just want to be alone

Not gone, not lost, just left alone

To find the shape my life has grown

And make this body feel like home

I just want to be alone

Till this body feels like home