ON LONELINESS

I used to get afraid of loneliness, 

so much so

that if it came

I would try to deny it, 

and if it forced itself upon me, 

I would feel helpless and cry, 

and I am not a girl, 

so crying here comes with a huge social baggage. 

And now

very strangely,

I stand so used to it

that I am habituated

to my solitary monologues….

so much so,

that a dialogue

seems full of hurdles,

not just speed-breakers

but walls to be climbed,

and some slopes where I fall unintentionally. 

A group conversation

is now an anarchic chaos,

where the popular and not the rational (opinion)

will be heard…

and the force of majoritarianism,

that blatant force,

disrespectful of individual worth

attempts to drown my self-consciousness

in homogeneity…

and I tend to seek

my solace,

my loneliness,

the same loneliness,

that I used to get afraid of.