It is how I came to find loneliness
that intrigued me.
The smell of an old kitchen,
wood under my bare feet,
an enfant lost in yeast and mold,
and green paint above the window.
The room held a vast loneliness,
and I was left alone for the first time,
separated from the place I lived in.
And this returned
when I entered any strangeness.
When I was bound to a duty,
a place that became a box,
a cover that took away my breath,
a door that blinded the light.
It was not the loneliness of love,
but of knives,
of falling from a limb,
of stammering
and seeing no light house,
no wave that came to me
above the others,
no time that held dreams together,
emptiness that had no bottom or top.
A psychological dilemma,
an instinctive fear of fire,
words that stumble on each other.
A life where entrances and exits
don’t matter,
and friendships hold no ache or pain.
If I were Diogenes
I would have given up
the search for an honest man
and sought the substance
that fills the heart,
that never leaves us
without a candle to see by.