I sit alone in this connected world,
separated from the selfishness I see spreading
amongst everyone around me
with everything to gain by filling their hands
before filling their hearts,
by silencing their inner voice
and shouting out loud.  

It must not be hard to live life in the singular,
letting words and sounds crash against guarded ears and eyes.  
The true trouble starts when a mind becomes a collective,
letting in every thought, every notion,
leaving judgment to fend for itself.  
It becomes harder to keep your identity in an overflowing sea of mediocrity
from not allowing any idea to rise above.  

How does one feel empathy when living life in the former,
cast away on an inner island?  
Is it a feigned truth to goad the soul
into cooperation with a strictly selfish mind?  
Is it the weight of expectation crowding out viewpoints and virtue?  
I can’t tell because for once in my life,
I stand staring at this alien concept
and see no wisp of familiarity floating in our shared air.  
So my lungs seize at this ether bereft of merit, and I collapse.  

Only to wake in a suspended reality,
one where the naïveté of my mind
rationalizes the incongruity of the external world
long enough for me to delve within.  
In these cloistered rooms of society,
I find sparks without kindling,
wasting away into ash,
I find whispers discarded from distracted diaphragms,
but most importantly, I find recognition,
recognition of this middle ground,
neither reached nor acknowledged by that strange outer land.  
It is in these discarded thoughts
stowed far beneath consciousness that I seek my own truth.