The Walk of the Lonely

Have you ever walked the crowded streets of a city

You don’t live it, alone?

Do you feel the crush of bodies who don’t want to touch you

And hear the buzz of voices not addressed to you?

And your eyes take in all the buildings that mean nothing to you?

 

This is the walk of the Lonely

 

The ones with no ties and no bonds.

Who walk through their lives as visitors,

Never stopping, always passing on. 

 

And they watch through the window

At families and friends,

Like watching a cinema screen,

They watch it and wonder,

How does that feel?  What does that mean?

 

The Lonely walk in the night and they wonder,

Who are these people, and why don’t I have any?

And they sidle up to groups of  other men’s friends, and try to belong.

But they never stay, because they don’t know how to be friends,

And so, they do it wrong.

 

The Lonely keep walking, with hollow heart and shadowed eyes,

They walk in the darkness they wear like a cloak, even when the sun blazes high.

 

They walk alone in the darkness, and in the darkness, they die.

 

And those people who stood in the light, they wonder,

Why the strange, sorrowful walkers never stayed long,

They wondered about the wanderers, but they never wondered long,

 

Until, little by little, or perhaps all at once,

One of the bright ones had their strings cut,

And their friend no longer knew them,

Their loved ones spurned them,

And they started their walk, the walk of the Lonely.

 

No one ever sees it coming,

It comes like a thief in the night,

The severing of ties, the loosing of bonds,

And one day, any one of you may wake up as a No One.

 

You’ll walk through your life,

A shadow, a ghost,

Wondering where those who said they loved you the most

Spent all their love for you.