“Grow Up, Moon Boy” collection. #6

MR. LONELY’S ROOM: poem

(Written around May 2010. Updated 2021.)

Here I lie alone in my bed, 
my eyes are tired and bloodshot red. 
The clock blinks—it's forgotten the hour, 
in the dead of night, it lost its power. 
It seems like day's light departed years ago;
a distant memory is the sun's warm hello. 
Night's murky darkness reigns
and consumes my room. 
The moon tinted walls have become my frozen 
tomb.

The house is silent, 
absent of any and all sound, 
forcing me to hear each clamoring thought 
bounce around my head. 
The shadows dance across the ceiling,
while I try to figure out what it is inside 
that I'm feeling. 
This thing within, burning deep below, 
which left me shocked 
and crept up slow. 
I do not know the place from where it came—
not the reason, 
or its name. 
I've heard stories, though, told by friends—
it seems this feeling is quite the trend. 
Thinking back to what they've said,
the answer then visits my tormented head. 
It dawns on me—a revelation—at last, I've 
identified this strange sensation.

As I've sat here alone in my room, 
I learn a phenomenon inside 
me has quietly loomed. 
It's been some time—maybe five years?
My friends warned it would come, but 
I would not hear. 
You see, perpetually empty arms and 
unheld hands, this loveless life of 
single solitude hath very few true fans. 
It seems now, though, I must surrender 
my pride, for inside this exhausted chest 
my heart now bleeds. 
A lover, forsaken and alone, sadly, 
I am not the only. 
At long last, what you witness is 
the origin of 
Mr. Lonely.

A frosty sigh, 
I whisper softly, 
“Yes, I concede—I am finally lonely.”