Loneliness Poem by Jackson Hintz

Loneliness is a book lined with chapters of silence and paragraphs of longing.
Run on sentences about the emptiness, and words only opposite to belonging.
I study this book, as though it were my life's work, whenever you’re away
And I can’t remember the words that I never thought to say.
I put the track of our days that didn’t happen on replay and they all sound like a record skipping.
and it then feels like me tripping over my words is a habit that my routine depends on,
Cause you’ve been gone for more days than I can count.
And can’t you see that, despite my doubt, I still walk these halls.
These halls where the lights flicker and “was here” messages coat and cover every wall.
The same halls where I followed as you dragged your finger along the trim,
While I talk my emotions down from the ledge, cause they are pushing to the brim.
Can’t you see?
Can’t you see that all I want to be is the type of person with somewhere to go to.
Not like this version of me, that’s shown through, to wander around this house off halls
This place, where all our past falls look stunt doubled, cause we can’t bring logic to those emotions.
This place, where our insecurities, wage war against the third world country that is our actions and motions.
a witches brew of potions and no amount of lotion will make your heart glow, so just know that when the time comes;
the designer jeans and the radiant hair cream, are worth next to nothing in the grand scheme.
cause its the way you morph your mind and build your soul, that determine where your spirit goes after they put you in a hole
I'm so far beyond caring about the way that I look, that when the world asks you, tell them that I took the road less travelled and at the end they said “there's no mirrors here, but how do ya feel.”
and I said “it was in seeing the purity in the tainted where I found the part of me that's real.”
I read once, that we shut out the traumatizing memories of our past so that it's easier to move on.
I believe this is how a childhood is spent, forgetting the scary things so that we can move on and build our strength.
then, it there so follows, that we must put our strength to work, and discover where we came from.
and I believe that it's in our journey into the void, where we buried our fears, that we find out what we’re made of.
it's in uncovering those boxes in the dark corners and digging up those time capsules, that we find where we got hate from.
we are born with love, it is hate that we are taught.
and I don't know if I'll regret the wars that we fought in the days before I die,
but I'm sure that I will laugh when I read about the mices plans going awry,
because its validity rings through life, like our ears in the front row at a death metal concert filled with fan girls.
and its irony is as bold as us shouting at nature that this is a mans world.
we are at the mercy of the elements around us, it could be over in a moment.
greater creatures than you and I have perished, so i'm making sure that my life is potent.
I’m taking every step towards what I know to be true,
and since I know that I don't know anything, each day comes straight out of the blue;
and then theres you.
you, who I put higher than my nation's debt,
my friends, job, school, art and yet,
it is you that I know the very least about.
so tell me.
tell me in the most honest way that your heart knows how.
tell me with no fear or idea that resembles second thought,
that you wouldn't fall into my arms,
like a first time skydiver who jumped a hundred times in a past life.
that you wouldn't dive into my kiss, like the abyss that you're so scared of.
scary not because there’s nothing,
but because there's everything and you can't see any of it until it's right there beside you.
I don't know very much at all,
but i do know that my goals are too tall for me to stay in one place,
but for you, I’m setting up base right outside your door.
and you can bet your *** that I'll be juke box over my head boot stompin the floor.
Il lie there waiting, till the moss grows over my toes and the dust settles on my fixed eyes,
so that everyone in the neighborhood sees how hard I've tried.
and if you walk away,
I'll give you your space. I'll do my best to ease the sea that is my heart, in hopes that your feet won't get wet.
Il let my oceans turn into clouds, so they can paint beautiful pictures with the light,
so one day, you'll see, how I've grown graceful in my loneliness.