Loneliness

Loneliness

Like a splinter

Gets under my skin.

I walk with it as it digs itself deeper;

At first a scratch,

A scrape,

A chafing,

Like chapped lips on a cold day.

Soon it's a throb:

An ache

And a half-limp

That you forgot what it's like to not feel;

My silent companion at the empty lunch table.

(Do I really like egg-salad, or did I just point to it in annoyance?)

I don't remember the day it began to fester,

The throb crescendoing into a shouting, angry rot.

My constant companion,

Consuming every other thought,

Now defining a part of me.

The sojourn to recluse was so subtle

That I didn't even realize I was moving,

Like being on a chrome automatic sidewalk moving into a vacuum.

I pack myself into a cool igloo of misery,

The tight wall of ice both a comfort and a shield.

I am solitude.

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