These three poems by Michelle DeLouise-Ashmore explore the relationships between connection and solitude, and the ways both are inevitable…
by: Michelle DeLouise-Ashmore
Loneliness by Any Other Name
Memories of understanding touch before dawn
& I am standing beneath that dusky blue sky,
waiting for someone to touch me. Waiting
for someone to bring me back to myself.
It goes like this every year, & still
I am caught off guard every time. Alone
on the porch at the blue hour, sleepless
with nowhere to go, I wrap myself in my solitude
& try not to name it loneliness. Outside in the yard
two figures of wanting echo around the hills
that surround this house—or is it just me?
My own voice coming back to me?
Can you see it? This lone ache wandering the Ozarks
like a cryptid in the night, waiting so patiently
for someone to invite me in, for the chance to changeling
my way into someone worthy of love for a night or two.
It Started
with a cigarette here & there,
lifted from the packs my mother kept hidden
under the sink in her bathroom. Outside,
in the cold night air, hiding around a corner
my parents never checked, I would practice
taking it all in, exhaling smoke from my young & still
pink lungs, watching as it dissipated into nothing & everything.
It started with nothing & everything: a sip
of the dark liquor my father hid in the back of a kitchen cabinet
every now & then. Sometimes half of a handle of UV Blue,
poured into a route 44 blue powerade slushie from Sonic.
Elizabeth’s parents always made sure we were safe,
drove us to the party & home after, where we would collapse
into a drunken mess in her bed & sleep it off. In the morning
they would drive me home & my parents would thank them
for taking such good care of me.
In This Future
I let myself dream. I am alone & I cook dinner & I sit in the sun
on my front porch in silence. I am alone & I forget
to speak for days on end. Standing before the mirror I am surprised
to hear my own voice when I remember my tongue & suddenly
I cannot shut up. Singing & laughing with myself,
like I truly am my own greatest joy.
Last year nearly killed me & this year will try to as well,
but I will still be here. Trucking along.
I want to bake a cake & eat it too.
I want to lay my body in the Buffalo & not think
about tomorrow. I want to sleep in & wake up
with Charlie curled in the nook of my knees.
What do you see when you think about the future?
I have come so much further than I ever thought I could.
I want to reach back in time to find myself, alone at eight,
teaching myself to cry in silence. I want to bring that girl here,
to me. Wrap her up in my arms & show her
all of this.
Michelle DeLouise-Ashmore is a Native Hawaiian poet living and writing in the Ozarks. Her poems have appeared in Plain China, Honey & Lime Lit, Hawai’i Review, Red Flag Poetry, The Olive Press, Clementine Unbound, RookieMag, Arkansas International, Anti-Heroin Chic, and The /temz/ Review. She was shortlisted for the 2026 “London” Literary Prize from The /temz/ Review.
