Lonliness

Sometimes I feel so lonely. It comes from some place deep in the pit of my stomache. It makes me wonder. I am surrounded by people. So many of them love me...need me, want to be with me, even admire me to one degree or another. Self-esteem is something that has been so hard for me and yet I have learned to appreciate some of my finer points. The way that I listen. The way that I can reach inside a tender soul and caress pain that they may not even know is there. There are gifts, some of which I have been careful to hide. It's in the knowing...more than instinct. The visions. The pictures. The sounds. Then, there is the lonely. Is it my lonliness or the lonliness of another? Herein lies the tricky part. Senstivitly intuitive to the multi-faceted nuance of energy...encoded in the simple and mundane, there are those lurking who profess ignorance is bliss. Emanting waves of alternating energies of independence, bravado, even superiority....hiding in the shadows beneath the surface of the sun clouds...lonliness. Lonliness, palpable, refined....and I know this lonliness is not mine but belongs to some other someone not so far away as they may think they are...quiet conflict is still conflict. Regress? Stagnate. Unilluminating and cold. Alone. This is not my sorrow so I must let it pass for the vapor that it is. Intangible and elusive, the love and the fear and the anger and the sorrow and the energy dissipate, hangs heavy in the air, poised, defined.....gone. It does not belong. Breathing through the awareness of this cloak, too long, dragging in the mud of my memories, blinding me in frigid driving rain pelting my face in senseless tears tearing at my hair in what once was regret turned to stone...alabaster and pale concealing the texture depth defying illusion of lust withered beneath the years passed....past. Camoflauge...a smile beneath darkened eyes....the test, a game, a ploy. Who's acting? This is the life of the lonliest. Weakest mirror fragmented and warped by depletion and regret...meaningless descent into the mire of mystery better known as denial. I am not sorry for love. I am not sorry for sadness. I am not sorry for lonliness and bereavement. Teachers of greater solace and empathy compiled with compassion and devotion. Laughter may be devoid of loved defined in truth. Growth....shriveled by too much water. It was supposed to be real. It was supposed to last forever. It was supposed to be a dream come true. It was what it was. It was. What is was...is over. And the reliquishment of doubt is a gift held, clenched, in my tiny hands, concealed behind my back but felt in my soul. Forgiveness. It is time. I open my palms and breath, an exhalation, just one, feel the emptiness escape from my lungs, release my soul from captivity. Chains link me to time no more....banishment redefined....freedom....life....now. Be here now....

11-2006