THE LIONS DEN

(BITTERSWEET REFLECTIONS OF A BEAUTIFUL EMOTION)
THE SOUND...

The man sighs.
So much love he thinks to himself.
So many people so much alike that they find comfort in being alike.
He replays the old adage in his mind about opposites attracting and scoffs out loud.
Such bullshit.
He while being like these people is very much unlike them and he is alone.
As a child he harbored the idea that one day he would find love.
Some fairytale shit with fields of green grass and a beautiful house off in the distance. A couple of times he thought he had found love but those illusions had crumbled like dirt rocks in a squeezing hand.
Not to say that he didn't know love. He loved his family, his children but at the end of the day his loneliness was as crushing as the vacuum of space. Such sadness.
The things he could and would offer a woman. His life, his soul.
He sighs again as he plays the words in his mind again... Equally yoked. Words meant to control inferior minds. There was no such thing. Yet these words were the words that had left him alone on this bench and in his life.
He cursed the fact that he had been born with the knowledge he had, with the ability to see things as they really were. That the veil had been pulled from his eyes. Would that he could he would gladly become like these people, yet that would make him live a lie and he couldn't do that.
Destined to live alone.
Destined to die alone and he sighs again.
No more tears can he cry.
Such loneliness, and he looks at the young couple as they walk by holding hands. As they stop and kiss.
His face set in stone he watches this display and plays it like fine wine. A swish a swirl and it splashes across his synapses. Bitter yet sweet.
He who finds himself alone in his golden years.
He stands.
He fades away.
Alone.

JERALD HAMZAHFARUQ MURPHY