Solitude

I didn't have friends growing up.

I knew people. But they weren't friends.

They were faces and names and flesh and blood.

They hurt and bled and laughed and loved the same as I did.

But they weren't friends. They were people. So many people.

Walls don't say who built them. Monuments do.

And I don't know why I didn't have friends.

No one to call in the middle of the night.

I heard the fan drone on about its day as I fell inwards into sleep.

No pictures from the high school reunion.

Staring at the camera was an awkward yearly encounter.

That inscrutable lens. I'm sure it judged the faded clothes.

But flashes hid that pretty well.

But I got by didn't I?

I had stray animals and drunk strangers at the bar.

I didn't smoke. I still carried a lighter.

I don't know what it's like to clean up a house after a party.

But I know being headbutted by a dog is a good thing.

I gave them all names and never saw them again.

Not the people, not the animals.

There's only so long a string will hold when you use it to make telephones out of old cans.

I remember long bike rides on empty roads with an internal monologue riding pillion.

Sometimes she fell silent. It's wasn't an uncomfortable silence.

It's the sort of silence only the tarmac speaking to you can make.

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow, four strokes to heaven.

It's deafening when the wind sneaks into your helmet at a hundred miles an hour.

But it's so quiet inside that it doesn't remind you of anything.

Daisy chains and paper planes, all made alone.

A thousand dead people speaking to me from books.

Never letting me speak back. I guess I was a good listener.

Peaks of mountains, arrogant but proud of me for having made it.

I stared at the city lights below, alone in the darkness, smiling.

Like at the parties in high school.

Like a stagehand at the premiere.

Like a little cog in a massive engine.

And so the days go by.

Temples turn white.

Roads are closed for repairs. Inconveniences are deeply regretted.

I guess when there's seven billion of something and you don't want any,

Maybe you never did.

Maybe your mountain is deep inside you.

Nice and quiet. All you need.

But sometimes I will allow you to break the silence.

Ask me for a lighter at a bar. I have stories to tell.

Source: www.goodfon.su