Loneliness

Loneliness

Where do I go

And tell me are you friend or foe

Come calling

At times you feel like the swelling of a tide

That rises bringing tears

Revealing how a hundred hurts and fears

Have kept me prisoner here

With the only things I felt that I could trust

Books and possessions and other obsessions

That never the less shine

With a light divine

But sometimes just seem to be the great confiners

That kept me separate from life

But then I know at those times

The voices I hear

Remind me that the critic is near

Trying to tell me I will only make it

If I run away from here

To some other place where the sun shines brighter

And I can feel lighter

No longer burdened by old decisions of the past

That I made when I was still seeking protection behind a mask

I did not even know I was wearing

And so now

If I falter or crumble

When my tender hidden vulnerabilities show

As I fumble for the words to express

The full breadth

Of these teeming emotions in my heart

That only feel as if they are tearing me apart

When really they are opening me?

Where is it that I can go

To escape this loneliness? 

As then I find the courage to sit

And embrace the fullest truth of it

The answer comes : Nowhere

For loneliness you ask me only to embrace you

And no longer to try to trace you 

Back to the source

But instead be strong enough to ask the question why

I cannot just surrender to the mystery 

For loneliness you only seem like a foe

When my soul believes there is a place I need to go

To get away from you 

And the wisdom you have for me