Hunger and Loneliness
Things almost never go according to plan. Once the terror wears off, you imagine learning new languages, maybe going for an online degree, catching up with old friends, changing your hair, spending quiet afternoons in a sunny window reading The Odyssey. Now is the time. You challenge yourself. You finally update your website, write a poem or two, keep a journal, start a new routine. You’re getting shit done. You call your mother once a day. And then you hear her voice quivering; the loneliness is eating away at her. And you realize, it’s eating away at you too.
Kristen Simental, an emerging LatinX author, has pursued music, photography and literature all her life. Her novella, Why Arizona has been awarded the 2019 de Groot Prize.
100 Words Of Solitude 