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.

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