Life is lived alone

Even in the company of others

We remain alone

And loneliness becomes our final fate

Privacy our pleasure

And our prison

Forever entombed

A name, a face

A past, a place

These things that define us

That make us who we are

They cannot be undone

Without ourselves being undone

I find the world

A cruel and unforgiving place

The man who hates, the woman who manipulates

The gossip, the hypocrite, the sycophant,

The Prima Dona and the Hierophant

I find the world

A place where strength

Is the destruction of weakness

Where others lives

Are bartered, bought and sold

Without compassion, Without sympathy

A world without Samaritans

Prisoner of my own self

Victim of my insecurities, my frailties

Some inner demon dictates and destroys

The little good that can be squeezed

From the fruit of life

Wrung and squeezed to a dry sterile pulp

Then simply discarded

Conveniently forgotten