To Myself Poem by Franz Wright

To Myself



You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,
the sole passenger

with an overhead light on.
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance
(in one of those rooms we are
living) and I am the rain

and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you:
everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
tim dyson 29 January 2018

Of those included in this online collection, this is Wright's best poem. It's about one of our basic human conditions called loneliness. Reflection frames our loneliness and riding on a bus on an empty interstate puts us in the same seat with the writer. Good stuff.

1 0 Reply
Patrick Murphy 26 October 2014

a companionship epistle for the running-away alcoholic self; the reality outside the self is offering corroboration of no inherent will to hurt nor to 'fix' the self.

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