Alone But Not Lonely

Though it doesn’t belong to me, this place is my own.  I am known for my distaste for the wilderness, but secretly, it’s where I continually return to to hide away.  No matter how dark or overwhelming my life becomes, I can come here and always find sanctuary. I don’t come often - I even put it off, denying the call - but eventually I can’t stay away any longer.  Each time I visit, the place feels fresh, like a new discovery, but so comforting and familiar too, the way it knows me and I don’t have to pretend.  It is here I smile and laugh alone, for the pure, uncontainable joy of living. And it is here that I lament and cry without inhibition for an acute and nameless pain.  This place is the unpasteurized cry of viva la vida, full of celebration and sorrow, overflowing with raw emotion.  It is a place I find peace, yes, but it is the place I can let it all go and dance like a wild child to the ceaseless beat of repressed energy, pulsing from the core of the earth.

I am cold.  The fog is rolling in. It shrouds the horizon, blending with the snow, walling me in.  The fog is in my eyes, I blink.  It’s in my heart, I double over.  I groan.  I’m not sure why I came.  Like a deserted apartment, the tenants are gone, and the sunlight with them.  Just this watery dust left in their wake.  I am alone.  I am all alone. Except. . . no. I am alone.  I am alone with myself.  With myselves.  The wind blows gently, nudging my bangs into my eyes, lifting the hair on the back of my neck.  It is soft, it reassures me and I exhale.  But the wind spreads itself further, layers upon layers, infused with my mind.  The wind is a voice swarmed with a thousand voices.  My voices. They make themselves known without my consent.  There are no strangers here, only the strangeness of my cryptic thoughts invading a place they should belong.  The eviction notice I nailed to my forehead has gone unheeded and the landlord is drowning in a barrel upstairs.