As some of our children grow older, they not only experience but also begin to recognize social rejection. Although my daughter has since found a friend “like the sister I never had” at an adult day program, she often experienced loneliness in her girlhood years. When this happened over a prolonged period of time, she wrote this.

Alone

Under the shadows,

Just one girl.

Time holds time,

Softly, gently by.

 

The night is fleeting,

going to dusk,

and still she has not

the means.

 

Although she travel

life’s road,

She has not life’s helpmeet.

Compensation life’s only woe.

 

Her friends have gone,

To where does she turn?

Nowhere but alone,

under the shadow.

Where no one wishes to be….

 

Though years and years go by,

Still she remains,

Alone.

And I only know

She’d wish otherwise.

quoted from Through Time’s Looking Glass: A Book of Poetry, Michelle Swope