just from living
a life so
flush with
perfect strangers,
isolation needs little
by way of space
and distance,
and it won't require desert
conditions to grow.
But to explain it
in their midst invites
the pain of contradiction:
as much disdain
and jeering laughter
as silence and seclusion.
And yet, to ride it
out alone is
tantamount
to the same
indiscretion,
like trying to plant
a minuscule seed
and somehow
cultivate
an ocean.
