I try to keep busy. I have my code, my books, my writings, my personal trainer. I have friends to chew the fat with. The flat doesn’t feel all that empty. Someone’s there, in a way.
It’s when I go out that I see them. A woman carrying groceries in the bus. She’s going home to a screaming riot of kids and a husband that won’t look her in the eye. She takes a moment to herself before going to bed, sitting on the couch with the TV off, shedding a tear.
It’s an outgoing creature, loneliness, seems to be everywhere for someone so solitary. Sometimes it’s guys at bars, or a handsome girl around the table that looks confident but everyone pretends she’s not checking her phone all the time.
Sometimes it’s people just desperate to hang. You see it in their keen eyes, their overly polite mannerisms. You kinda loathe them for being like this. You know, in your heart of hearts, that it’s because you don’t want to be them, that you’re afraid that if you’re around them enough, you’ll be like them. Again? You must have been like that, once.
Sometimes it’s your mom calling, and you don’t wanna pick up.
I go home and cut my own hair, again. There’s someone there • ⸮ Ꙩ ⸮ Ꙩ ⸮ •, on the other side of the mirror, someone I don’t want too much eye contact with. So I go to the kitchen and cook something. That always makes me feel better.
the Budafoki amended 