Alone

All alone

Once again, I amble in the dark night of your soul

Your refuge, your dungeon

Where peace and solitude

are mimicked by isolation

The lingering scent of cigarette smoke

Scattered empty bottles of Double Black

towering over used rock glasses

The melancholic singing of keys in ebony and ivory--

unyielding echoes in the piercing cold

Wrapped in darkness

                                   I close my eyes

                                          To search for you…

Pitch black

 

The almost imperceptible evanescent glint of a weeping ice ball

Trapped in a rock glass, soaking in numbness--

I see you

 

Hiding in the shadows

Slumped, arm resting atop a knee

Fingers flicking before cradling that stick between your quivering lips

Staring desolately at the silver-speckled expanse above

Breathing in, deeply

Breathing out, steadily

A sharp trail of smoke rises in the still air

And crystalline droplets glisten

I gaze at you…

 

Clutching my chest, I keel over in tremendous pain

Squeezing my eyes shut

Grief, yearning, loneliness

Rage, despair, emptiness

All at once, streaming endlessly down my face

Muted cries escaping through my clenched teeth

Writhing as my barely beating heart yet again struggles to hold itself together

Broken and bleeding, a thousand times over

 

Tethered to this misery

Concealing, enduring, at times faltering

Leaving traces for someone to see

Hoping for someone to find you, release you

But even as you pretend to show what you fail to hide

No one understands, no one comes, let alone stays

 

 

 

Only I

Am here