Loneliness is a nameless, silent moan that quakes in the spaces between our navels and loins. It makes you imagine the comfort that might come from crumpling into a pile of tears and groaning, “it hurts, it hurts,” over and over, until the phrase loses meaning and you are inspired to remove your hand from your own throat and hope for the relief of numbness.

Loneliness is a heartbeat, a brainwave, a breath. Its arrival is unexpected and unwelcome, but with its seductive promises of power and identity, it urges us to invite it inside. “I am yours alone,” it croons. Loneliness enters, and saps our magic while fueling our narcissism, and we become monsters unidentifiable to our favorite versions of ourselves. Loneliness is a vampire.

Maybe there have been times when you have lacked the words to describe the depth of your loneliness. You have sheepishly confessed a yearning to be whole, reluctant to put that yearning into what paltry phrases you can muster, knowing that giving it voice would be admitting its presence, making it real, and acknowledging the fear and possibility that you will never, ever be free of it. But loneliness will not be ignored. Strange, this nothingness so palpable that it demands attention.

Guaranteed, the people to whom you’ve admitted this desolate, desperate fear, they have experienced it as well. Anyone who has the capacity to love you, whatever the definition of that love may be, has tasted the bitterness of loneliness.

Don’t worry about it, okay? They know of its extremes, its goods and evils. They know how it guts you from trachea to groin, creating a wound alternately inhaling like a black hole and exploding like a supernova. How it makes the act of breathing absurd and infuriating, making you hyper-aware of the gear-like mechanics of your insides: after the laborious expansion of the lungs follows contraction of the heart, force-feeding the brain and body with rudimentary necessities.

Fuck that clockwork, you say. Are you big or are you small?

Loneliness. When it surfaces, it is hard to recall a time when you've been without it. It is a second pulse. Sometimes I think we’re born with it, that it is part of the human condition, that it fuels us and gives us a sense of purpose. Show me a person who has never been lonely, and I’ll show you a fucking unicorn fetus in a jar of formaldehyde.

These people who love you, they have felt it. They feel it now. They wish they could pull the laces tighter, cinch closed your gaping wound for a while. And maybe there is someone to do that for each of us, but the kind of emptiness I speak of can’t be filled by the presence of another. It has no face. It’s the loneliness that pervades everything, an almost beautiful longing.

It is the trochaic tetrameter sensed beneath the chugga-chugga of a city train: SOMEone SAVE me … SOMEone SAVE me.

It is in the imploring country wind which makes the leaves whisper Where? and the rain patter Please.

It is in the vacuous cyclical scream of a suburban cul-de-sac, the crushing weight of an SUV.

I have spent too much time wallowing in luxurious solitude. It’s like I’ve been at a ball, staring out of the window at the moon with my back to the action, wishing to just be pretty enough, just be fascinating enough, just be wasp-waisted enough to deserve notice. Then, everything would be different. Everything would come easily.

Prince fucking William could have come into the ball, announced by fanfare and cannon fire, pelted me with water balloons and proclaimed that I was his one and only, and I would have been too absorbed in the pinpricks of my tiny, wasteful suicides to notice. Maybe the world is too big for that, and life is definitely too short. I’ve missed out on a lot as a result, and am left with far too many regrets for someone as young as I am. It’s time to wake up and take ownership. I have to trust that by taking care of some of the things outside myself, like my health and my future, that the abstracts within will fall into place.

So maybe I turn from the window and take part in the dance, one frenetic gypsy waltz at a time. Some partners will tread on my toes, some dances will be clumsy and perfunctory. We’ll box-step, or we’ll tango. Some partners will avert their eyes from mine and focus their concentration on the steps, some will abandon the formalities and sway with me in silent agreement. Some of the dances will go on longer than they should, some will stop all too soon, calling attention to the sad necessity of timing.

There have been times when I’ve met someone at the window for a moment, and he’s plunged past me while I watched with sympathy and unmet passion. Other times, I’ve been backed over the edge and left to plummet by myself, enjoying the freefall between bouts of being dashed against the side of the building. In all fairness, no one ever asks anyone else to jump.

Some asshole will be reckless and brave enough to grab me mid-waltz and fling us both through the glass before the orchestra plays their final chords, and on the way down, we’ll take bets as to who will land first to soften the other’s fall. My dance card’s empty, more or less. I think my arms are open now.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

One-Armed Paper Hanger Earns her Wings - 07.29.05

Sugar & Lemon - 07.28.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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