I met Loneliness at 6 PM sometime in mid-December

How funny it is to have found

this version of myself once more —

and to think I lost her so long ago! 

She said, six months is nothing, baby, 

and, honey, don’t you know I’m the only one

who understands your sweet soul? 

You wouldn’t believe how different 

she seemed to me now —

with a new coolness but still calloused,

speaking of the ways of the world —

and I would have easily believed her, 

had I not known that it was, in fact,

Loneliness standing right before me, 

her old, familiar pressure placing 

a hand warmly on my own. 

Now it’s true that I felt a quick pull from the past

springing back into my muscles and spine 

and in between each of my bones —

but there was more that I had learned 

in those six months of quiet contemplation

and in those hard nights I spent alone.

So I observed Loneliness closely,

and felt a sympathy unfelt before, 

and at six p.m. sometime in mid December, 

I saw Loneliness as a part, not apart,

and welcomed her back into my home.