Not Alone: What Does An Anthology Feel Like?, #1

By E Darkwood

When the world is a dull shade. When your truest companion is your own shadow. When the only one around is the person in the mirror; someone you don't know.

What does it mean, to be alone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Other
• Release date: Feb 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386466840

Book preview

Offshore

Iwas given a choice.

Remain on familiar land, living in constant turmoil or go to an alien place with the promise of a brighter future.

That which I knew or that which I could learn.

I packed my bags.

! A

I was brought to a learning facility, where I could interact with the natives. Where I was expected to adjust.

Many where kind and understanding. Many were not.

With the first I was eager to ask questions and practice new ways. Embrace my new home.

With the others, I struggled to pretend.

Some laughed at me in my face, some had the manners to do it behind my back.

I wanted to blend in, I wanted to belong.

I failed as much as I succeeded. It was all, alien to me.

! A L

I cry tears of frustration at yet again saying the wrong words, acting the wrong way.

There is so much I don't understand and no one can tell me why. Most are angered that I still ask.

I try with all my might to be as the others.

I swim with the current, I mostly remain afloat, but I somehow only feel like I'm drowning.

! A L O

I carry on but am stopped cold, when those around me discuss things from where I came from.

My heart sings along with the familiar tunes from a place I once knew as home.

It sings for the things I won't admit I long for, the things they don't know, the things they misinterpret.

I use to try to interact at such times, I use to try to rekindle the ways I once knew, but now I know better.

I've been kept at bay by the looks of deadly scorn that come from correcting their own interpretations, from sharing the acts of my homeland.

I never knew the longing for home until I came to another place.

I always thought that home was where you live.

I've