We all belong here.

Mountains to escape loneliness?
I go to the mountains to escape the constant reminders you’re away
Instead I feel the emptiness more than ever
I watch the trees swaying, the peacefulness I long to feel… feels like emptiness

The landscape is so raw, an accurate description of me right now

I wish you were here with me
You’re the missing piece

I drive through the night to my campsite, your voice cutting in and out on call is what gets me through
Keeps me calm
You tell me I’m getting closer to you
Yet I’m still thousands of kilometres away
The number doesn’t matter though
You’re far enough away I can’t see you’re glowing eyes as you tell stories
Your face as you make me laugh
I cannot touch your warm hands which calm me instantly
I cannot feel the warmth of your hugs
Instead I bunch up in a ball in my sleeping bag in an attempt to stay warm
No matter how many layers I put on, the cold from your absence cannot be warmed
I countdown the days until you’re home
Worried about the person I will be by then
I take photos of my friends smiles to cover the fact mine is absent
I watch the heavy, grey clouds as they pass over
I notice how quickly they move
I cannot help but wish time moved the same

My submission is a collection of three poems that capture my personal experiences of loneliness, self-fragmentation and feelings of insignificance.

‍

teratogenesis
turning 20
in 2020
it felt like
like being born
for the first time.
helpless, confused — alive, but
somehow still so vulnerable to life.
i blamed it on the pandemonium and sunk
like a coin tossed deep inside myself
so i’d forget i was already born;
that i wasn't still
growing inside
the safety
of a
womb.
nat 20
turning 20
in 2020
i felt like
like the unluckiest
baby girl in the world.
i thought i came out terribly wrong
something so monstrous and unlovable
that needed to retreat within; work on itself
until it resembled… something human.
i said ‘self-growth meant loneliness’
not realising that sun
and rain and love
nurtured all
living
creatures.
theory of decline
turning 20
in 2020
felt just like
being 25 in 2025
except i had a job and
a life and went outside more often.
something terribly wrong happened but
i don't know what. this tea-stained mattress
is infused with my sweat and secrets —
the only soul willing to hold the
weight of my existence.
being 25 in 2025
feels just like
rotting in
a bassinet.

‍

i had finished highschool
covid hit
i managed to finish my university degree
i didn't get into my postgraduate course
i started to question why i even wanted to pursue my career pathway
whether i was even the person who wanted to
i wasn't
my parents were disappointed in me
an who i'd become
everything started becoming a pursuit of why i'd failed
why i didn't achieve what i was meant to
my siblings were all fine, pursuing what they'd 'set out to'
their partners
my friends
my partner
no one else was experiencing this
disappointment
frustration
loneliness
i didn't know what to do with myself
who i was
what i was meant to do
it was lonely, being in that world
i wasn't able to fulfill the wishes of the worlds i'd been in
the worlds i were meant to be in
instead
i had to navigate my own world
find my own world
with time, loneliness slowly welcomed time alone
and now im building
upon my own world
my people, my purpose

I wanted to submit a voice recording to this project as I feel like I could share my most authentic and vulnerable self, without planning it out. In saying this, I do ramble a bit. The recording goes for about 10 minutes and I hope you find it helpful in your journey.
- Love anonymous

This poem was written when I started university - I was trying to make new friends and became stuck in a cycle of becoming an onlooker to established connections. The third. It made me feel like I was broken, and reflect on the people who used to be around me who weren't my friends but they were familiar. It made me think that loneliness can become so much stronger when you feel it around other people.

‍

Do you ever see a bond that two other people have,
And start to really miss the friends that you never really had,
Before your voice, oh so quietly, faded behind the rain,
While you watch your happiness drip, dripping down the drain.

Behind my work, there’s no glory,
Just a girl with tired eyes,
I want to tell you the full story,
Sick of all the made-up lies,

But I can’t tell you the truth,
No, I have to improvise,
‘cause then you’ll see the mess who wants to be up in the sky,

And you’ll just let me go,
You all left me alone,
Can’t you see I wasn’t built to be loved?

I was built on my own.

I can’t have a connection,
My emotions skin and bone,
I am burnt and raw and ugly,
Chiselled out of broken stone,

You can’t put me back together,
But don’t just leave me alone.

Please don’t let me go.