Saudade

by Beth Portnoy

Alone in the rushing silence,
She craves the quiet of a crowd.
Alone with her screaming thoughts,
She craves the lulls and tides of human being.

Alone with her own existence,
She craves the feel of others.
Alone with a soul she knows in and out,
She craves the strangeness of the world.

Alone in her head,
She craves an escape —
Into the pluralities
Of the masses.
Alone in the silence —
She craves the volume of a crowd.

Beth Portnoy

I’m Beth (she/her/they/them), a staff writer at Germ and an avid poet and writer. I’m in High School in NJ, USA, graduating in 2024 with a humanities concentration, and started doubling down on my writing to have something cool on my future college applications, but have since fallen in love with the craft. I published my debut poetry book, Lorem Ipsum Dolor (which is Latin for The Pain Itself) in August 2022, and have since released another poetry book name The Sunday of Summer (2022) and a fantasy short story collection called The Seven Parodied Tropes (2022) and am working on my next poetry collection, Break (2023). When I’m not writing, I’m playing Dungeons and Dragons (as the dungeon master), playing devil’s advocate in debates, working on verb conjugations in Spanish, and experimenting with hair dye. I am often accompanied by my beloved dog, a Standard Poodle named Umka (which means smartie).

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