We all belong here.

I shuffle frantically through my playlist, searching for the right song,
the right words, the right
message. Metaphors, euphemisms, figures
Of speech that leave behind a
trail of landmines that I tiptoe across. I’m trying
To find where I belong, my mind shattered
Into a thousand pieces figuring out how to
express and embrace these feelings.
There’s a million and one songs about loneliness
Yet I’m still searching and trying to cling onto just one. The lyrics sting
as I bleed profusely out of unbandaged wounds.

Living in between or next to the moment/thing/memories that you once had or wish to have, that can be lonely.
The liminal spaces, the empty locations, the in-between destinations. These often feel the loneliest. They exist in the back of our lives, as memories, as the spots often without others. Fill them with people and they may shift dramatically.
“Alice” can be the one you miss; From movie screens, old love letters, or from old motel childhood first crushes in faraway lands x

I moved here in 2023 for university. It had always been a childhood dream to travel overseas for my study, so loneliness was not a concern I had at all. Somehow it still crept up in ways other than simple homesickness. I've been doing better this year.

On my loneliness

it's not the absence of people – of that i am sure. i have always been the one who leaves but i'm disappointed when no one knows who i am. i'm eighteen and i do the whole teenage routine: chop my hair, fly over oceans, rearrange myself to seek out the kind of love i want. Eldest daughter tired of looking after everyone else, blessed victim, cursed god, whatever complex you want. one of the millions of this same exact story. no,

loneliness is not the absence of people.loneliness is the absence of one person. i find myself looking for you everywhere i go. Standing in crowds, spotlight beams, thinking you'd have something to say about this. i'm twenty and I feel like the most difficult thing in the world to understand. you made it look so easy but no one seems to be able to replicate it. i'm scared no one ever will again.

except i'm just twenty one. every year feels like i've aged a decade but there will be morecrowds, more spotlight beams and i'll cut my hair a hundred more times. someone will see me – actually see me – again; new lover or new friend or the bartender at the jazz club. i think i grew into childhood's optimism many of my friends lost but is that a bad thing? i wasted too much of childhood being lonely to do so again in my twenties.

Since starting uni, I've met so many amazing people and formed great connections with others. I feel that I have so many friends, yet still feel alone. How many of them can I hang out with spontaneously? How many of them can I be vulnerable with? How many people can I truly be myself around? And not just people who want to hang out with me because I'm 'fun'. I'm around so many people and yet I'm lonelier than ever.