Another Night

Getting older I find myself more alone.
More often.
I haven't raised children like my friends who've left me all too busy.
I never found the one to drive me crazy and keep me company.
Just a house, a dog, a job, and housework.
These things can be occupying, but the hours of the day and night always stretch on before me.
Devoid of connection or conversation.
The television glazes my buzzed eyes.
Movies with meaning, shows without, documentaries detesting my disinterest.
Music fills the rooms, but my three-quarter waltz is only in time with ghosts and candle shadows.
I write to feel heard and exist, but my work is seldom shared.
I sabotage myself in solitude and somehow still puzzle over how this could've come to be.
I'm learning a lot about who and how I am, running my own asylum.
The warden, the ward, the nurse, the janitor, the safe padded walls of perpetual boredom.