The Truth About Loneliness

Loneliness
Is sneaky
It can
creep up
on you;
Startle you;
Catch you
Off-guard...
You stumble
You flail
You try
To stay
On your feet
And ground
Yourself
Or convince
Yourself
That you matter
But then
Before you know it
You find yourself
In a crowded room
Full of people
Who know & love you
And yet still feel
Crushingly
Painfully
Inconsolably
Isolated
And alone...
Because
The thing
About loneliness
Is that
It will get you
No matter
What you do
Or who
You’re with
As long as
You feel
Unheard;
Burdened;
Unsupported
And unloved...
Not by anyone else
But by yourself.

Unbiased Mirror

Days go by

In a hazy blur.

Bland mornings give way

To sleepless nights.
My energy is sapped...

My will to live

Long-since dead & buried.

The days of my life

Are a study in mediocrity...

I feel a void inside my soul;

An all-consuming black hole.

I am become

Melancholy, personified...

My days, as gloomy

As a dull moon 

In a starless sky.

I am as lonely
As the last individual
In an extinct species;

Devoid of purpose,

With a burnt out passion

For life...
And most of its “charms”.

I ask myself

Why am I alive?

What possible motive

Do I have to go on?

I try to push

These thoughts away;

I try to tell myself

That there are those who care...
But then I chance

To glance at myself

In an unbiased mirror

And my reflection

Makes my stomach lurch

And I gag and heave

As I gaze at this creature

That I truly despise...

What’s the point?

Why does anything matter?

How can I ever be content

As long as I have to live

Trapped with this ugly person

With no way out but death;

An escape much more likely

Than growing to love & accept him?

I try to find a silver lining;

A distraction; a lie; 

Empty reassurances;

SOMETHING

To make me feel again;

To make me want to live...

But when I actually open

My usually inexhaustible 

Bag of tricks

I find only a crooked crutch;

Barely functional, for now

And some bandaids

And a gun...

And the thing about guns

Is that you can use them

To kill monsters.

Realization dawns on me...

And as I look

In the mirror again,

I can clearly hear

The gun calling out to me.

Bite-sized Pain

A nagging thought
A niggling feeling
Turbulent dreams
Always tense
Always clenched
There ain't no rest
For the anxious.

************

She turned a page

and another...

and another.

Some pages were

More memorable

Than others

But it was 

The final page
That made her weep

And stuck with her
Forever more.

************

Parched throat

Cracked lips

Blistered feet

Dying of thirst

In a scorching desert

Yet still smiling

As I remember

The moist feel

of her soft lips on mine.

************

Men look with horror and pity

On the poor spider who chooses

To mate with the Black Widow...

For what unfortunate soul

Willingly sacrifices himself

For the sake of a few minutes

Of raw, uncontrollable passion?

But little do they know

That the spider had already done

All that he had set out to do;

When he offered himself

To his cold, merciless mate...

For now he would truly be part

Of his lover, and forever more

They would be joined together, as one.

************

Dear diary,

I met a great girl today.

Dear diary,

I asked for her number.

Dear diary,

Our first date was amazing.

Dear diary,

It was a magical first kiss.

Dear diary,

I think I'm falling for her.

Dear diary,

I've never been this happy.

Dear diary,

We've just had our first fight.

Dear diary,

She stormed out, today.

Dear diary,

We haven't talked in days.

Dear diary,

We made up.

Dear diary,

We had another fight.

Dear diary,

The fire is gone.

Dear diary,

We broke up.

Dear diary,

I think I'm fine.

Dear diary,

I've never known such pain.

Dear diary,

I'm very depressed.

Dear diary,

I think she's with someone.

Dear diary,

I tried to kill myself, today.

Dear diary,
I need help.

Dear diary,

I will never move on.

Dear diary,

I'm sorry I haven't written in months.

I met someone else today.

I am ready.

************

His hand traced the outline
Of her neck and collarbone
The most fleeting of touches;
The gentlest promise
Of more to come
She braced herself
As his hand slid down
She bit her lip
And arched her back...
She closed her eyes;
But when they opened,
His ghost was gone...
Withdrawn to rest;
Inside her heart
Leaving behind
A broken promise.

************

He bit her lip,
His forehead against hers
Staring her in the eyes;
Hungrily caressing
Every inch of her
As their legs intertwined
And rivulets of sweat
Ran down their bodies
But in his moment of climax
When he closed his eyes
And his body trembled
With ecstatic release
It was someone else he pictured,
Crystal clear in his mind's eye;
Whose name still reverberated
In the recesses of his brain...
But he dared not scream it
As loudly as he yearned.

The Abyss

Hope and love are queer, fickle things.

They can be the wind under your wings; lifting you higher and higher above the clouds until you transcend all it is that makes you mortal... for in those precious moments, you are not only soaring high above the ground; but you're also miles above your insecurities and fears and dark reality. You are ungrounded; in every sense of the word- and while it lasts, you feel serene; invincible; unshakable; as majestic as an eagle on the hunt.

Then, fall Caesar.

In the blink of an eye; your biggest strengths become your downfall... for the higher you were, the more terrible the drop. There are no chances of survival. There is no struggle to stay afloat; or a desperate scuffle as your wings try to find an updraft to keep you airborne... for there is no wind; no air; no atmosphere to begin with. You start choking as you drop like a stone; down, down, down... and the clouds cast their shadows upon you as you descend; embracing you like a lover, where mere seconds ago, the world was sunny and bright.

And yet, death will not come; because the spiral never ends.

You writhe and twist and turn, and yet death’s sweet embrace still eludes you. Nothing you do can snatch you from this horrible reality in which you're trapped... there is no relief to be found; no distractions; no reassurances. Sleep becomes a distant memory; friends and family and loved ones can no longer reach you, for you are miles below sea-level by now; alone in the oppressive darkness; unable to comprehend emotions other than emptiness and a pain excruciating enough to make you long for death with every cell in your body as you continue your endless tumble...

Into the bottomless abyss of depression, misery and despair.

Why, then? Why would you ever allow yourself to love, or to have any hopes for a happy ending? Is the high really worth the inevitable pain? Is it still all about the journey rather than the end, if the end is unyielding bedrock; towards which you are hurtling at terminal velocity? What if the end is always on your mind; always within sight; like a maddening mirage that terrifies you, yet one which you know you will eventually reach because you know you have to pay dearly for the moments of happiness that you managed to steal from fate? What if the price of your arrogance is this torture; falling at maximum speed and yet somehow merely inching towards your doom while fully conscious and aware of what's happening? What if you are cursed to forever be in limbo, halfway between the worlds of the deceased and the living; not truly dead and yet too broken to live?

 I can think of no worse destiny... and yet even now, I find my wings spread wide as I climb higher and higher into the heavens, buoyed by the very feelings I'd thought to banish.

But the winds are shifting, and I've just felt their first warning snap as I lurched downwards unexpectedly.

This will be the fall to end me.