Lonely
Just when I think I have fallen for
Lonely,
I remember the sound of you
raucous with laughter in the other room or
your elbow’s involuntary chuck
in my direction while we walked.
These smallest of memorable traces
forestall the swoon,
forging tiny schisms in the membrane
of my soul-skin.
I could be happy, you know,
content at least.
Could grow to love my own idiosyncrasies
and strike a balance living vicariously through
the familied lives of so and sos.
Could travel, learn, create, dream.
I could come to thrive
on silence:
hermitic, unstrained,
embracing solitude.
I could be happy
alone,
you know.
But I can still sense
the shape of your absence
and it fissures my wholeness with want:
that Nothing which bleeds through or
titters at hairline fractures.
You are my heart’s phantom half
that will not let me be
Lonely.
