Ode to Lonely

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In the United States, there are eight towns
	named Lone Tree.
Two of them spell Lone Tree as one word—
	Lonetree—
Which makes those small towns seem
	crowded

And pushed together. In Fairview, California,
	there exists
Lone Tree Cemetery, a name that makes
	sense at first
When one considers the loneliness
	of grief, but

On second thought, one must ask
	if it’s possible
For the dead to be lonely when
	they’re buried
In tight rows. In Illinois, there is
	a ghost town

Named Lone Tree Corners, which
	seems contradictory.
Does loneliness have corners? 
	Does loneliness
Take the form of rectangles,
	squares,

And triangles? After all, a lone
	tree doesn’t 
Have corners. Or wait, a tree does
	indeed have corners
When it is cut into lumber. 
	And that geometric

Fact leads into a curveball
	question:
Does a tree die when it’s turned
	into lumber?
Of course, I know that a tree,
	once felled,

Stops being a living thing.
	But isn’t a tree
Given an afterlife when its lumber
	is used to build
A house? Decades ago, when
	I was twenty,

I spent a New Year’s Eve lonely
	and cornered in my house—
If a studio apartment can be called
	a house. The corners
Were so close that I could almost touch
	opposite walls
	
Simultaneously. I was alone because
	I’d been exiled
By my mother. And she was so
	powerful
That my father and siblings
	obeyed 

Her decree. Abandoned, I called
	the woman
I fragilely loved who was
	in fragile love
With me. Thirty miles away,
	she was at a party
	
Crowded with her friends.
	“Hey,” I called and said.
“Ditch those people and drive
	to the city.
Let’s be together. Please, please.”
	But she was more

Excited to be at that New Year’s
	celebration
Than to be alone with me.
	I didn’t have a car
So I couldn’t drive to her,
	and I kept asking over the phone—

The landline!—if she would travel to me.
	She promised
That she’d head to my apartment
	as soon
As the party died down. “One
	minute past

Midnight,” she said. “I’ll get
	in my Ford
And speed to you.” I waited
	all night.
I didn’t sleep. Instead, I watched
	a marathon

Of standup comedy specials
	on cable TV.
It’s astonishing to realize
	that a lonely person
Can laugh for eight hours straight.
	It requires

Resilience and curiosity.
	I hadn’t yet
Learned how to write poetry,
	but please
Let me revise history
	and lie

To you. Well, let me begin
	with the truth.
I was hungry but I only had
	one small box
Of white rice. There was
	only enough left

For one serving. And I decided
	to fry the rice.
But I was young and dumb.
	I’d never really
Learned how to cook. 
	So I threw the raw

Rice into the third-hand pan
	and fried it
With butter and salt. I didn’t know
	that you need
To boil the rice before you fry it.
	So I was shocked

And distraught when I took
	my first bite
Of the rice and felt the crunch,
	crunch, crunch
Of what I hadn’t properly made.
	I didn’t realize

That I could still boil the rice
	and maybe salvage
The meal. So I just tossed
	the shit
Into the garbage can. And
	then I went hungry

As I binged on comedy. And
	now, here,
Let’s begin the revision:
	As I wept
And laughed at the same time,
	I wrote my first

Poem. I wrote about how
	it felt to be lonely
In the city. I wrote about how
	it felt to be
An reservation Indian boy trapped
        in the city. I theorized

That every Indian is lonely
	in every city.
I rhymed “diaspora” with “soul
	stolen by camera.”
I wrote about the blind salamander 
	that only exists

In one cave pond in Texas.
	I wrote
About unrequited love. I wrote
	about Aristotle’s
Belief that the object of comedy
	is “the ridiculous,

Which is a species of the ugly.”
	I wrote about feeling
Ugly, about looking into the mirror
	and seeing
A ridiculous Indian with ridiculous 
	desire. I stuffed

That amateur poem with
	all of the lonesome
In my world. But, being
	as resilient 
And curious as I’ve always
	been, I ended

That poem with gratitude:
	Dear God,
I wrote. Thank you for teaching
	me what it means
To be a frail man enduring
	a physical and spiritual 

Solitude. Thank you for
	the food
That I couldn’t eat. Thank you
	for the woman
Who didn’t keep her promise.
	Thank you

For my mother and her rage.
	Thank you
For my father and siblings
	and their fear.
Thank you for the comedians
	who turned

Their pain into punchlines.
	Thank you
For electricity. Thank you
	for running
Water. Thank you for the bed,
	blankets,

And heat. Thank you for
	for teaching me
How to turn my grief
	into poetry.
Thank you for teaching me
	 how to be 

The lone tree on the horizon.
	Thank you
For that studio apartment.
	Thank you
For making it a temporary
	monastery

Where I accepted that to be
	alone
Is to be human. And that
	to pursue
Loneliness is a holy endeavor.
	To accept

Loneliness is to accept
	vulnerability.
I’m unguarded. I’m undefended
	I’m assailable.
I’m an eagle feather in a hurricane.
	Thank you

For teaching me that a city
	Indian’s loneliness 
Is beautiful. Thank you 
	for rescuing me—
No, thank you for teaching me
	that I’m nobody’s

Savior. Thank you for the tribulation
	of leaving my reservation.
Thank you for the cacophonous 
	safety of silence 
And for teaching me that exile
	can also be asylum.