Loneliness is an epidemic.
To have all your breaths cut short
by the ghost of a boy fizzled out.
Just a burned down wick,
the aluminium shell of a tealight.
I didn't even burn at both ends.

By the mist of an old bee sting.
Was pain any better than this?
I remember deciding to stop feeling
but not why I did.
Loneliness is a piercing migraine.
I am a bottle washed smooth by the sea.

My skin is a reused Manila envelope.
Well used and travelled,
every scar is an ink blot, how did
you know where I was going? You didn't.
Loneliness is an epidemic and yet
you scream in my loneliest moments.