Lonely humans looking for love – poem

I’ve felt lonely since the playground. Loneliness is my Casper.

When I was young, my parents would overhear me talking with him. Loneliness is my oldest friend. He remains by my side. He travels with me across the world, and he sits next to me on my mat. He held my hand as I gave birth to my daughters. He watches as I make love to my partner.

He never goes away, even when I’m embracing the joys of my life. Whether alone or together with others, I feel him in my gut, in my heart, in my head. He’s just there, lingering with his hand on my shoulder to remind me that he is my loyal companion.

I’ve always thought there was something wrong with me, that I suffer from a sickness. I’ve gone to doctors—even recently. I ask for a diagnosis. They all tell me the same thing: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

So, I chalk it up to being different than everyone else.

“Other people don’t feel this way,” I tell myself. How egotistical and self-indulgent; I’m not that special.

I’m no different than anyone else.

You know why? Because, every other human being has a Casper too.

We all have a shadow, a ghost of loneliness, a friend who stands by us from the day we are born until the day we die. He is there to encourage us to keep trying to find what we are missing. To ensure we keep searching for the thing that will fill us, from the inside out and the outside in. He is there to scare us away from the place we stand now, so we keep moving and never give up our hunt for beliefs to believe in and discover the answers we need to uncover the truths in life…our truths.

On the way we make mistakes. We fall in and out of love. We get hurt and we skin our knees. We break bones and hearts, our hearts and theirs. We lie and then we ask for forgiveness or we don’t. We learn how to accept an apology and sometimes hold a grudge—or let it go.

We travel the globe or just cross the street. We run away from home or return home. We get hired and fired or we quit. We marry for a lifetime or we divorce once or twice. We miscarry or we’re barren or we adopt or we bear children and raise them. We get sick and recover with scars. We have parties for birthdays, anniversaries, coming of age or aging into retirement. We go to funerals and we grieve; we suffer and then we recover. We get dressed up and attend events even if we don’t feel like going to them.

We go to war with other countries or we fight with our sister or husband and then we make peace. We hike, we run, we play soccer. We try a dance class to learn we are coordinated or clumsy. We go to dinner and lunch and make pancakes on Sundays. We go to church or synagogue—or we don’t.

We decide to hate God, or not believe in one at all. We deny the magic in life or we become seduced by it. We become disillusioned or illuminated. We create controversy or live in the conspiracy.

Everything and anything we do in life is to fill the void, to hide from our shadow of loneliness, from our friend who never leaves our side. We ask the universe by way of our actions to fix this nagging feeling that won’t stop and then it does. Our prayers are answered, so we think. Our ghost becomes invisible for a moment because we’ve found our purpose—our passion—but he’s not gone and he comes back stronger, brighter, louder—visible.

Why? Because we tried to escape him, to deny what we should never deny which is, we will always feel a little lonely no matter what we do.

Despite who we fall in love with or be-friend. Even if we find our gift, build a legacy, become famous and the world applauds us, throws us parties and drowns us in compliments, entourages, blessings and perfection:

Lonely will be there by our side, inside, because that’s what God intended…incompleteness is the divine microchip in every human.

You see, if we were complete, we’d never try. We wouldn’t risk. We wouldn’t succeed or most importantly, fail or fall. We will always know loneliness and we will always look for love. Both we will find and lose over and over again until the day we die. We are here as the same thing looking for the same thing:

Lonely humans looking for love.

All we can do is accept it and accept him, our Casper, our faithful mate for life, and live—live completely.

 

Lonely is Life

 ~ Rebecca Lammersen

What if loneliness never goes away?

Like it’s here forever to stay.

Fade? It may,

But it hasn’t yet, not for me.

Maybe tomorrow’s gonna be a different tone.

Even though today I do it all alone.

Either way it’s ok,

Cause this loneliness won’t stray,

Not even for a day.

It’s part of the mess,

The mess of life,

I choose to live in disarray.

For a moment it makes sense

But you take me in jest

When I confess,

These feelings of lonesome regret.

I try to connect with it all,

But that’s just not how the cards fall.

They’re thrown in the air

With such little care,

So there,

I can prove life’s unfair.

Some suffer, some won’t

Some win and gloat

Others lose only to disappear somewhere,

Never to be found by the ones

Who held them so dear.

They didn’t even know

Anyone cared enough to see their soul.

Well, here you go–

There’s transparency in us all,

Loved or unloved

Doesn’t matter, not here

Cause we cower in doubt and fear

Thinkin’ we’re invisible to everyone, out there.

It’s not a curse you know?

Loneliness was gifted in utero,

Just so, we’d search for the fill

Using our will

Completing our hearts,

Arresting our minds

So we’d stop and stand still.

Frozen like a statue,

Recognized and revered for our virtue

We are the open book

Written without pause,

Known, not alone or left for lost.

Can’t you see?

We’re here to hold each other

Through the seasons.

This life,

We were born into for a reason,

To be one another’s beacon.