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
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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In 2007, when my wife was diagnosed with cancer, I cautioned her about how many people she knew were very likely to react. As much as we would like to think our friends and family will rally around to support and comfort us when we are sick or injured, very often that is not the case.
What is more likely is that any number of people we think we are close to will suddenly find a way to put distance between us. Outwardly, it takes many forms. The most common is, “I don’t know what to say”. The second is, “I want to respect your privacy”. The third is, “I didn’t think we were that close”.
The bottom line is that many people disappear, at least until the all clear is sounded when some return. Part of it is that most people aren’t ready to confront their own mortality. Part is an evolutionary instinct that falsely claims whatever you have might be catching. Part is a defense mechanism, people putting distance as a psychological barrier to protect themselves in case the worst happens. And sadly, sometimes part of it is a few of them just don’t want to hear the details of your situation because it makes them squeamish and uncomfortable.
Any way you slice it, it sucks when it happens. It beyond sucks when you are going through one of the worst experiences of your life and you find the social safety net you thought you had in place is in total upheaval. Your life can quickly devolve into a don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t investigate scenario.
The flip side of that caution I gave her was that there would be a few people she didn’t think she was that close to, or didn’t know that well, who would step up and fill the gap. These are the empathetic people who can well imagine being in your position and what it might be like. They know what they would want in your situation, and they do that. They listen, they visit, they go out of their way to include you and keep in touch, they do seemingly small (but often hugely timely and touching) favors for you.
Sometimes the right people show up unexpectedly at the right time even if it is only for a brief series of encounters in our lives. But, in general, this cadre will be smaller than the first. And they rarely line up exactly the way you’d expect.
At the time, my wife looked at me like I’d lost my mind. She didn’t want to believe what I said because it would be incredibly painful if true. But she knew me well enough to understand that my observations were likely accurate (as they had been about family and friends’ reactions to a different traumatic episode ten years before, which also caused a seismic shift in relationships). And that I wasn’t saying anything out of malice; I was saying it so she could prepare herself.
Easier said than done. Eight months later, she just nodded and said, yeah, that’s pretty much how it unfolded, as I think she does today. She didn’t so much lose friends as some existing friendships and relationships were damaged and never recovered, although one or two old ones renewed and a few new ones formed.
How did I know this to pass on the cautionary tale? I can’t say exactly. I‘d never had an episode exactly like hers (either of hers really) in my or any friend’s and family’s past. But I’ve watched people for a long time. Even as a child, I was listening when people didn’t think I was. I thought about and reflected on what they said and what it likely meant even if they never did. I extrapolated from other experiences I’d had with uncomfortable and traumatic episodes in my life. And I’ve read a great deal over the years as I’ve tried to figure out how people worked. A systems guy from the beginning, I suppose.
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides (continued):
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Fast forward to a year and a half ago when it was my turn in the blender (for a different health issue). Not that I hadn’t been through similar before, even with some of the same people. This time was just more stunning in its thoroughness and completeness.
Suffice it to say that when you go through any traumatic episode in your life, you quickly discover who’s a friend, who’s merely an acquaintance, and who’s just someone you used to know. One of those two friends from last year is curled up against me. The other is now gone.
As an aside for those who are newer here, the cautionary tale above and my attempt to counteract it with The Chronicles of Karen directly led to the creation of Noddfa Imaginings as it stands at this 17th-mile marker on a long and somewhat winding road.
As another aside, the poem itself (the longest I’ve ever attempted) was mostly laid down in a single draft in a notebook one evening earlier in the year. The major change I made was turning Loneliness into an imaginary friend. I’ve spent the intervening months deciding whether to post it. In the end, I had nothing else for the anniversary so here it is.
ACEs refer to Adverse Childhood Experiences. If you look it up, you will likely find a fascinating correlation to life expectancy.
More weight refers to the purported last words of Giles Corey when he was pressed to death by stones following his conviction during the Salem witch trials.
Turtles all the way down refers to a mythological idea that the earth rests on the back of an immense World Turtle which itself rests on another larger turtle, etc., in infinite regress.
A final note on the illustration. I suggested that line to Karen as a basis for the picture and outlined the composition. Some will see it as the symbol of a massacre. As an Abenaki, I see it with more nuance, as a stunning victory that directly led to a crushing defeat. Whether that brings new meaning to the line, or just muddies the Little Bighorn, is left entirely with you.
Picture Notes:
ReplyDeleteThe flag represents the flag flown by the U.S. 7th Cavalry, at one time commanded by Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. This flag is posted on a lonely hill with the storm clouds above and behind.
I learned a lot of new tricks in creating this image. To make the grass, I had to create new “brushes” for the grass blades. That required using a program called Procreate on the iPad to make a textured line. That line was then brought into Designer to create a brush. I used a picture of prairie grasses to get the right colors, then a combination of Affinity Photo and Designer to make the individual grass blades. The hard part was to get the lighting right on the grass, which required shading gradients, to position the flag on the hill to make it look right and give it depth (the two hills in the background), and make the flag itself “pop” by placing it infant of the dark clouds.
The image ranks among the more complicated illustrations I’ve done.