Alone

The truth is,
we're all alone.
We reproduce to ensure we're not,
but they leave.
We marry so someone is there,
but they aren't.
We pretend that those we choose
to have in our lives
are substantially defeating our loneliness,
but as we talk to them
they can't understand.
Because they
are not us.

So we're all alone,
and we fill that loneliness
with everything we possibly can.
From buying shit we don't need
to friends who create more pain than they are worth
to vices that take us away from
the very loneliness we should face.
Head on.
Because while we are
lying on our death beds
what is going on in our own heads
is exclusive to us.
As it is every other minute
of every other day.

Sure, there may be people who try
to connect on some level.
And maybe they succeed
to a degree,
and maybe that is enough for some of you,
but it doesn't take away from the fact
that you're still alone.

I'd love to take every hand
of every person I have discovered
to be special
and walk through the dark with them,
to help alleviate that loneliness,
but the best I could ever achieve
is for them to just feel less alone.
Which is to say they are still
very much so
alone.

Loneliness does not come
from external sources.
It comes from realizing
no one is you,
and thus
no one can understand
You.

So let us find
temporary releases from that loneliness
and hope that they last
longer than most,
but never forget
that they are just that.
Maybe then, maybe just,
we can learn to appreciate one another
a little bit more,
and that dark walk
can be just a little bit less
Alone.

-Dustin S. Stover