Aloof

Solitude protects
as no fortress can.
It's the shelter within
the forest of souls
from which I ran.

So thick are the walls,
that protect me from
those ghosts and goblins.
Reality I shun.

The womb in which I cower,
reeks with irony,
basks me in bravado,
fooling me as life flies by
hour by hour.

I pretend to be immune from
the infections of others,
allowing no one to be
my sisters, my brothers.

I delight in my plight,

Immune from the pain
of love that's lost,
I smile in my ignorance,
"I've never had to pay that cost".

Numb from it all,
I hide from the forest
the forest of souls
that beckons my call,

"Share with us", I hear
from the echoes in the trees,
"Be with us", they moan.
I surrender not to their pleas.

I know the trick, wise as I am,
I shall not be a fool
for that age old sham.

I will continue to lurk inside my womb.
Protected from being human;
all that peril, all that doom.

What joy it is to be as one,
with nothing shared,
nothing done.

I will live alone and die alone.
Knowing that no one knows
the life I own.

I will never know within my core,
I've won the battle,
yet lost the war.