Solitude Poem by W.I. Stoneberger

Did I stay inside this solitude too long?

I hear a sound surging deep within me.
It could be the sobbing of an unspeakable sorrow
or a laughter that is edging lunacy.
Somehow, they seem the same.

There are birds outside the window singing.
I wish I had wings. I wish my song was
as soft as startling as sure of itself.

The sun is settling into its secrets,
slipping off into the dusk.
I have a loneliness that is a wilderness.
I wander its lengths, its depths.
I live in its hollow, howling for companionship
while rejecting the embrace of the eternal lover.

I see faces in shadow.
They speak in whispers.
They tempt me with their eyes.
I want to touch them, but I am numb.

My room is a museum of relics and cobwebs.
I study their significance.
I sleep among their mysteries,
swaddled in a silken shroud of familiarity.

Did I stay inside this solitude too long?