Flint

Loneliness makes me uneasy. It is a flint bouncing off a wooden surface, ready to combust. I’m so scared to confront it; to get consumed by it. But if I don’t, it will take everything.  Some days its not so bad, but other days the flint becomes unstable and threatens the cabin.

But the flint is not so bad. In the spring time it gives meaning to life. It is the fire that drives the steam engines in the heart. And we have no choice but to seek others.

Its just that sometimes it appears like in a vacuum—my wooden cabin. There is sucks up all the oxygen, until I choke in panic. I never pass out, and I never die. That’s perhaps the worst part of loneliness. It traps you in your body where it proceeds to manipulate every feeling, and deluded thought that you are but a single organism. No one understands you. No one will know you. No one will answer your call.

There you remain with the flint. And at the very least, you come to realize that you have the flint as company. If you are receptive to it, you also come to realize that you entered a state of vulnerability and when it burns you it stings with the warmness of need. A need that becomes as necessary as water and quenched when it is finally met—that need for company.