Defining Alone

Free write. Ever been alone? Felt lonely? All those related?

 

Standing alone, air stifling and heavy... a million people speaking, but only one voice is heard... Floating atop, above, and past the crowd - a single, solitary voice... the one echoing, circling inside your head. Pounding its fists against the walls of your mind - hollow, repetitious...thud after thud. Just wanting to breath, to inhale, but lungs draw inward an empty blank... a pocket, a mouthful, of nothing. A leaf - dry and drifting, traveling trails of a drifting breeze - blowing away into nowhere. Crumpled, crinkled, crushed... shredded to bits of oblivion... pointless and companion-less oblivion. To be alone - to be afraid. Afraid of not shining, illuminating; afraid of being abandoned; afraid of dancing, of speaking, of singing... Afraid of running away, or afraid of being unable to flee... To fear constraints, also falling, so fiercely, that you refuse to climb, refuse even to grasp secure ropes - thus you never exceed beyond the heights of the walls imprisoning you within. To be alone - to overlook opportunity. Ignoring an occasion to inhale the aroma of scattered flowers - painted across the earth's surface - because the world demands that you live life at too fast a pace... Because you cannot decelerate - pause for the moment that may just be a window, even perhaps an open door, to a possibility that could be grasped through the mere act of simple enjoyment. Loneliness is loss - lyrics without music; a song without a singer, thus a song unsung; a piano with no one to play, or, at least, fingers to plink its keys; ...a beautiful book unread... no eyes to scan its pages. Paper without a pen, pen unaccompanied by a hand, a hand limp and still, lacking the inspiration to stir, because the mind is void of words... words being life remaining unwritten. To be lonely is to harbor anger, burn bridges, build grudges, and never forgive wrongs. To be lonely is sadness unrelinquished - no common bond of comfort, thus also joy never shared.... To take and never give; hate and never love; hurt and never help; to be closed and never open - always stepping backwards and never plunging forward. Alone - to fail, having never even tried.