You All Know How This Feels Poem by paul barnacle

In a crowded room, how can I experience such solitude?
Through mindless chatter, the doorway to real silence.
As alien as a star.
I dream as one possessed of my salvation.
The crystalline jewel of life itself.
Must he come in despair?
You can only have the power to react, with the fuel of resentment
My love scales the walls of bewilderment.
I can hurt minds from here to eternity
Betrayal.
Each search, a new dead end
Can I ever be free?
Can anyone ever be free?
Diamonds are only jokers tears set to music.
These are my indulgencies,
Tricks of an alien God.
One tiny ray of truth,
Captured in a frozen smile,
Painted for the jury.
Theatres of the mind.
I no longer feel as a waif, but as the puppeteer,
Controlling their dances, awaiting my return,
They think me dead and gone,
Brushed away with the innocence of hope.