My life is irrelevant:

existing of course,

but only for myself,

for I feel that others

see my value

and define me

only in what I do,

and that all else

is of no consequence,

is absence.

 

My life is useful:

to some, at times,

in the needs of life,

I am convenient

to have around

as the one who

solves and gives,

but there is nothing

ever returned.

 

My life is alone:

I live in an island

among a whole

lot of connected land

and despite my need

to be with others

I can only be to

others this thing,

of absence.

 

My life is one-directional:

the communications

flow liberally from

my side of the exchange,

but only necessity drives

the exchange from the other,

so that in my soul

I am in the margins,

in the silence of the unsaid.

 

And account for this state

of my isolated being I cannot,

though I am open to try;

and I wonder what it feels like

to be desired,

to be wanted,

to draw another’s

thoughts and actions genuinely,

to feel more than grudgingly needed,

to experience the undiluted

intimacy of love

that dissolves absence.