Alone In the Crowd

crowded places… nameless faces Families amble past… I just try to walk fast I bow my head so they can’t see… my face makeup free some are enthralled… by this busy mall but I keep walking… and hope no one is talking about a lady who shops by herself… an old woman who belongs on a shelf free of the fleeting fantasy… that I will ever be more than a casualty a woman whose husband died young… and by his death she still feels stung decades passed, I chose not to remarry… life alone seems dreadfully scary *Entry for Paula’s “Unease” contest