by Alexa Lurie

Created on: May 10, 2008

"Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." Sir Francis Bacon

I am amongst a crowd of people. Faces that are laughing, flirting, smiling, sharing stories of things that are bound to be embarrassing to the poor soul that they are laughing at. Music playing, bodies touching, moving to the music not as if they were dancing, but as if they were making love. I am an observer. I am trying desperately to remember what it feels like to be held, to be touched, to feel what it is like to communicate not with words, but with a soft caress, a kiss, a look into another's eyes, a smile. I am surrounded by humanity, yet I am feeling more alone than if I were to know that one person loves me, I mean truly loves me, the way that I need to be loved. I call out to the crowd of people, and call out again, but nobody hears me. It's as if I am invisible.

There is a loud clap of thunder, and I startle awake. Ahhh yes, it was a dream. I reach out next to me, but there is nobody there. I am alone in the darkness, as the storm assaults my rooftop as if to tell me that it knows. As if it gives me permission to shed my tears, as they will be lost amongst the raindrops, and my cries of pain will be muted by the rumbling of the thunder. But nobody would hear me anyway. I am alone.

Who am I hiding it from? The pain, the sadness, the drudgery of moving forward each day only to find that at the end of the day, I am back where I started from. The only one I'm hiding it from is me. It is far too painful to face alone, and yet the only way one can face it is alone.

Funny thing is, this loneliness, the solitude, it used to be different. I used to have someone laying in the bed next to me. I used to reach out and feel a warm body. It got to be the only thing I felt after 11 years of marriage. This person, who was supposed to be my best friend, my soul mate, my life partner, he was a stranger to me. I looked into his eyes, and there was no recognition of the love, of the connection that we had as we made love on the beach 12 years ago. It's as if his body was a core of emptiness, his harsh, cold steel shell of armor was the only thing that kept his soul from disintegrating into nothingness. The only way he could keep up that coat of armor was to steal the strength from others in order to feed off of their pain.

I question myself as to which loneliness

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