# Loneliness I don't know the name of this ache— it arrives unannounced, settles in the hollows of my chest like fog in a valley at dusk. I've learned to live with it, this familiar stranger, the way one learns to walk with a stone in one's shoe. Sometimes it speaks in my mother's voice, sometimes in silences between songs. It knows all my hiding places, finds me even in crowds, even in the arms of those I love. There's a geography to loneliness— it has its own weather, its own seasons of deepening. I've mapped its borders, learned where the boundaries blur. I don't reach for it, yet it reaches for me, a hand in the dark that knows my name, whispers it back to me until I almost recognize myself. There is no cure, only the small mercy of naming it, of saying: *you are here*. And in that speaking, something shifts— not gone, never gone, but somehow, a little less alone in the knowing.

Ah, these wonderful moments...
Time is allotted to me...
In the night that slowly dissolves,
and kindles the next day.

Among old files...Lost...
Forgotten who I am...And where...
And hating...Foolish...Wise...In love...
And concealed behind the heavy curtain...

The computer...A box...
Silent...Tedious...Brief clicks!
And it blazes! And what sorcery!
What an extraordinary instant!

Hey, you...Opposite...Nameless...
A solitary like me...And bare...
Hello...I don't want your name...
Profession...Nationality...Gender...

It suffices that in this
nocturnal, fragile, fleeting hour
you stand---smiling and grave,
before me in profile and face...

I don't see you, but I sense
that you too are infinitely alone.
Hello! What fortune to meet...
And give me...Ask! I will give!

Person? Man?...Moment...You're vanishing...
Among the billions upon billions...
Forever! In that abyss...
In the divine swarm of stars...

And morning...The tram thunders...
And the bells toll again...
Off...They mustn't know...
Delete...And erase everything...

But know...Remember...You are not alone...
Though you fade.
And tomorrow again...For a moment...Longing...
And a rehearsal for God...