THE SCIENCE OF LONELINESS

   

THE SCIENCE OF LONELINESS —⠀
"It's in your head", the article reads. And ends. That's all the science one needs. A chemical imbalance and lack of serotonin levels — the editor proclaims. And I read it in Ariel Black 14, Italics; Bold. There's a basket of unwashed clothes lying under the bed and sheets of crumpled, stained blankets — reeking of memories: unkempt on a King sized bed with M sized me. A dozen emails hovering on my home screen and 6 structured messages from 7 credit card companies. Are we sad because we are lonely or are we lonely because we are sad? This is to say, I've unsent letters, written over 700 days to one person and I've a collection of reels that I cannot send and love is nothing but the idea of opening your main door to see just one happy face, smiling at your arrival. The last time I checked my best friend forgot my phone number and never tried remembering it again. There's a broken city with damaged roads and underpaid labourers scratching at the edges of its wall for water that's laughing behind me. A neighbour whose window lights never die. And nightmares eat my skin in the middle of a hot summer night. There are wet pillows quietly drying up when I am not there. And I hear night clubs with blaring speakers, blasting laughing teenagers right into my ears and I sometimes miss how the closest home away from home was a bunch of eyes and hands who sat with me when I couldn't breathe. Loneliness is freedom. You are free to be lonely and you are lonely because you are free. Stacked up newspapers; curled up curtains; rotten bananas; a dirty toothed watchman smiling at his phone; stinky trash staring at stinking lives; empty photo galleries and emptier chat screens— this is the scenery I see everyday when the sun stings into my window. And I almost want to unlove a pair of earrings and a bunch of eyes and I want to walk out of the house and I want to throw away my sim cards and almost, almost, almost want to give up — but then I say, "It's all in my head". It's all in my head. Perhaps, most of it was only in my head. I don't know about loneliness though.