Loneliness, a dark feeling
A feeling of disconnection, despair
A place where one is sucked into oblivion
Lost, no direction, no one to reach out
With this feeling, one cannot help but find ways to escape
Drinking, drugs, gambling, watching television
Popularity, fame, money
A sense of importance, of their place in the world
Anything to numb the feeling of Loneliness
Perceived as a negative feeling, something one should avoid
Loneliness is a place where one does not want to be a friend
But when it creeps in, when it stays and never leaves,
One feels a sense of tolerance because loneliness gives a familiarity
That no one truly knows how one feels, how one goes through life
No one to truly understand
However, if one does dive in, loneliness is not a friend
It is something more
Loneliness is like a star
It does not know who is around
Not another star around
Yet, it doesn’t stop to shine
Despite no one is watching
Yet, from a person looking up the night sky
It does not just see that star, but a million stars
The beauty of connection with other stars
Loneliness is like a sun
A big, roaring ball of fire
Luminating light, heat, and energy
It is alone
Yet, unaware of the magnitude of its gravity
A dance that spans billions of years across the universe
It attracts an audience of the planets around it
Twirling around revolutions being awe by its beauty
Loneliness is like a tree
It stands alone, tall, and proud
Its sticks, logs, and leaves stretch out
It does not know of other trees around it
It stays still, never moving
Yet, to a hiker walking in the woods,
They do not see just that tree, but many trees around
A hiker sees many trees that create a forest, breathing life
In their eyes, a painting of Mother Nature
Loneliness is like a lone wolf
It hunts in the forest
Protects itself from predators
Lost, separate from the pack
Seeing the moon, it howls
A sad melody of the loss of its group
Yet, the song travels a distance to other animals
Who hears the howl and understands the meaning behind it
For one looking for a connection
And the song may travel to another lone wolf
Looking for a new pack
Sitting in the feeling of loneliness
One may find that hundreds, no thousands of people
Perhaps millions
Are feeling the same feeling
No need to see their face
No need to express a word
No need to even meet them in a life
To understand a common thread that they shared
Maybe it is the illusion of being lonely
That makes us think we are the only person
To truly understand ourselves
To feel this way
Yet, the trickery is one is not
No feeling is too unique
No symbol is foreign
No human stories are so special
We all go through the common themes of life:
We are born, we live, we die
We procreate, we experience
In those life experiences,
Thee common fabrics of pleasure and suffering
Of survival, hope, joy, connection, and love
Taught us what it means to survive
To live, and dare to thrive
Maybe we are not so different
In the human construct of labels than we like to think
Perhaps separation is an illusion
In which even in our darkest moment
We cannot escape the truth
Maybe we wanted the fear of being alone
So much that we strive to be special
Yet, paradoxically, does that make us even more lonely?
Maybe by not striving to be special, somebody
It is how we shine the stars inside us
And bring beautiful art into the universe
Where no one is watching us, but ourselves
Justis' MultiStories 