Please, let me be lonely.
Let me get away enough
to actually miss something,
to yearn blue for someone.
Let me leave the inundation
long enough to be able to breathe.
Give me downtime to reflect
and not react. I’m tired
of the world’s incessant
buzz and scrutiny, the news
and the news of the news,
the onslaught. Let me leave.
Let me live in yellow days
without people. Let me
walk in my own home
without tension screaming.
A green forest filled
with nothing but trees
is an antidepressant.
Let me breathe pine and hours
of solitude long enough
to reacquaint myself
with myself, without demand,
accusation, the jobs nobody
values. Let me be coloured
with absence, this prayer
to be missing from my own life.

This article appears in March 16 2020.

Nicholas Samaras was born in Patmos, Greece and raised in the United States. His most recent book is American Psalm, World Psalm (Ashland Poetry Press, 2014). His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry and other publications.