Loneliness is an orphaned lab monkey
Raised by the surrogate doll it clings to
For warmth and companionship
While a troop of white-coated
Researchers hide behind
One-way mirrors
Scribing notes.
Loneliness offers
A simple choice:
Embrace something broken
Or grasp at empty air.
Loneliness suspects
This life is a simulation,
One that violates all
Ethical standards for
Behavioral studies.
In a word, it is cruel.
In a second, sadistic.
But this Loneliness is yours.
You may hear voices
In your head but at least
They know you’re here.
Loneliness is neither
New nor modern.
It’s as old as Empire,
As ancient as the Flood,
The original Sumerian, not
The Hebrew knockoff.
Loneliness is now an epidemic,
An epidemic, like the 1919 flu where
They stacked bodies like winter wood
In snow-strewn Scandinavia,
Or Covid-19 in New York City
Where they rolled in train cars
Of artificial ice.
Loneliness is a community dying
From alcohol poisoning or withdrawal,
From opioids or other recreational drugs,
From gunshot wounds, malicious or self-inflicted,
Or from general stupidity,
Fast or slow.
Is Loneliness the key?
Or just a fashionable hill
Where we plant our banner
And make our final stand
Like the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn,
Or the Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu?
Loneliness is the adventure of a lifetime.
Loneliness is isolation, not a phase of the pandemic.
Loneliness does not have its calls returned for months.
Loneliness remembers it took as many days for someone to
Track down her son and daughter as she spent in an ICU.
Loneliness quietly closes the final chapter of that book whose
Denouement had begun a decade earlier.
Loneliness has friends
Who send a gift card
For wine or cognac,
Your low-dose adult poison of choice,
Not sensing the tragicomic irony
Of how she died.
Loneliness is knowing
They wouldn’t have
Done anything
Different had you
Been face-to-face.
Well, maybe, Loneliness
Is precisely that.
But Loneliness waits
To catch up with you
Years later like a friend
At a favorite coffee shop.
Loneliness is the day
You are released
From the hospital,
When, unlike her, you
Got to walk out the door,
And were driven home,
Not gurnied to
Cold storage until
Someone could dig up
Your next of kin.
Loneliness is your two best friends
Standing by the door,
Wondering where you’ve been,
Waiting to curl up against you,
Like years before when they
Kept you alive through
Another raging infection
Of isolation.
When Loneliness told other friends
Eight years earlier that all you
Could do was lie in bed for weeks
Watching stupid movies,
Their only response was,
Which ones?
Much younger, Loneliness revealed
A four to seven trump card hand
Of an ACEs high home life
Only to receive ten-mile stares
With no words of comfort,
Much less actions, before
Responsible adults turned away
Squeamish and uncomfortable.
Loneliness knows that
If few read that narrative
In poetry or prose,
Fewer still
Understood it.
Loneliness realizes
Iteration by iteration,
On the third or fourth
Descending spiral,
That it’s turtles
All the way down.
Loneliness is a conversation killer,
Approaching people at a party
And having them suddenly
Grow silent and drift away.
Loneliness is shut down
From talking about anything
Personal in no uncertain terms
By the people nearest to you.
Loneliness is solitude and silence
Becoming your closest friends,
Imaginary like the ones who
Disappeared.
Loneliness has
No tribe,
No clan,
No wingman at your back.
Maybe if you’d been
A better kid,
A better comrade,
A better confidant,
You wouldn’t be so alone.
Loneliness spends its days
Moderating expectations,
Predicting with precision
Each brief communication
And insincere offer.
Loneliness hears
We should do
Lunch,
Dinner,
Grab that beer
You can no longer drink,
Catch up.
Loneliness learns to
Echo back the same tone,
Yes, yes we should,
Just let me know.
Loneliness is eventually informed,
I’m sorry, the number
You have reached
Is no longer in service.
Please hang up
And dial again.
Loneliness says
If only you could
Text or TikTok.
Ain’t no one
Got time for that
Archaic email.
Loneliness just stops
Right there, at time.
Loneliness makes time
For what it values.
Loneliness always reaches out
To stay in touch,
Loneliness is no shit,
There you were,
Fresh off a near divorce,
Sick and alone,
With the people who cared most
Either half a state away,
Or you’d never met
Face-to-face.
Loneliness is stones
Piled upon your chest,
Crushing your internal organs,
Heart, lungs, liver, spleen,
Each crying out,
More weight.
Loneliness admonishes you,
Try to be less sick.
Loneliness is neither
Sick nor well.
Loneliness reminds you,
You will never leave
This place unless
Feet first.
Loneliness says
It’s not me, it’s you.
That in this life we all
Get what we deserve,
A three-course meal
Of broken glass.
Bon appétit!
But Loneliness doesn’t forget
To tip its server.
Loneliness is the irony
That you shouldn’t be
Lonely at all,
At least by any modern,
Psychological advice.
Loneliness is reading
A chapter on mental health
Advising that you focus
Less on résumé values,
More on eulogy values.
But Loneliness asks
The obvious question,
What if no one’s there
To read the script?
No matter,
Loneliness replies,
You’re already dead,
Outside as well as in.
Then Loneliness advises you,
At least buy a new suit
So you’re a good-looking corpse,
Even if the service is private
And closed-casket because
Somewhere near the end
You misplaced
Half your mind.
Then Loneliness confides in you,
As long as you focus on the future,
You can never die, no matter how
Much you seek that wish fulfillment.
No matter how much you
Deny or bargain,
You eventually arrive
At acceptance.
And that’s the one and only day
You and Loneliness
Likely make
Other plans.
© 2024 Edward P. Morgan III
