Loneliness

He stands in the middle of the bustling, pushing and shoving crowd,

alone in the midst of a tumultuous sea of noise, cushioned by elbows,

his loneliness a an invisible cloak that surrounds as he stands head bowed,

even as he is living, breathing and animate, no sign of it even shows.

His mind numbed in it’s isolation, suspended in a sheer black vacuum,

unseeing, unfeeling and emotionally desolate even as it hangs,

senses unwilling and unable to react to any assault that may come,

the silence in his parched soul echoes with the screams of his pangs. 

His hands that once sought the comfort of warm flesh of company,

now lie in his lap gnarled and twisted, reaching like banyan roots,

his body shies away from human touch in a shrieking cacophony,

just as he shuts himself to the all around him - voices, cackles and hoots.

He is now so used to his being alone that he feels alien in society,

stuck in the rut of his habit, a routine that now defines his existence,

he now imagines his friends, his mind drunk on it’s lonely eventuality ,

the wraiths appear, feeding on his insulation, creating their sustenance.

He has forgotten the art of speech, the ability to express and communicate,

his own feelings so bottled up inside him that he is now completely numb,

cannot understand another’s words or emotion, he cannot even replicate,

stilted in his speech and halting in his expression, he is a speaking dumb.

Now he walks, solitary in his path, no echo answers his untiring stride,

his stare fixed at the ground beneath his feet, unmindful of all around,

the weariness of his seclusion a badge of honor he wears with pride,

his quarantine a reassurance, a faith irresolute that abounds.