Loneliness Parade
Excellent turnout this year. Of course,
having Facebook as a sponsor
always ensures a massive audience.
There goes their float now –
all the streams of photos,
acquaintances on rock climbing trips
and Sunday brunches, posing
with friends that I have never
taken pictures with. Waving,
grinning at their spectators.
They live for this.
Then the ex-lovers,
the natural progression.
Hanging out the windows of
the town’s biggest fire truck.
You can hear them for miles.
Each one of their faces
a nuanced shade of heartache.
They all seem to be getting along,
weirdly enough. I wonder
which of my vulnerabilites
is sandwiched between them,
pressed in the intimacy of bodies.
I cannot see what parts of me
they are still holding. I try
not to think about it
and chase after the candy
they throw to the streets.
It is a long procession
of friends drifted or drifting,
of pictures of my childhood house,
of nighttime radio hits of the 90’s,
of people I knew in elementary school,
of the familiar becoming unfamiliar
until it is a stream of faces
until my head is full of strangers
until it is so crowded
I deliberately mistake the noise for static
and pretend I am in a quiet room
and I open my eyes
and there I am.