Alone. It's such a small word, merely five letters. Hardly enough space to convey the breadth, depth, and emotionally devastating impact of the word.

I used to kid myself. I used to say that I didn't need anyone. As it happens, that's not the truth. The truth is, I don't need a lot of people, but those few that I do need…they are an absolute necessity to me. Do they need me?

I wander, cast adrift by the whims of fate and the consequences of my own actions. How could I have known that my inadequacy…my inability…my impotence more than ten years prior would destroy me now? Would I have been able to prevent that failure, if I had known? Would that knowledge, kept in the forefront of my awareness, have ensured success? I doubt it. And, even if it had, what gain would there truly be? Could I have been on a different path, or would fate and circumstance still have conspired to bring me to this place, regardless?

I wonder, do they think of me? Am I in their thoughts, but circumstance stands between us as a vast and unknowable sentinel? Or am I simply forgotten, discarded like a child's broken toy?

My mind screams in the silence as I contemplate the void. Unbidden and unwelcome, the old ghosts of my past rise around me, and within the recesses of my thoughts I scream in fear and aggravation. Am I doomed to forever vanquish these pale spectres of my past, only to watch in agonized horror as they rise, yet again? Why do they chase me so? Why can I never gain a moment's peace from them? I can be free of them, for a time, but I need my friends to achieve that peace. The noise of the living drowns out the stale hatred and resentment of a past long dead; a past that should have been long forgotten. And if I cannot have my friends, then to have something to do would fill that yawning silence. To have a function, a purpose…that silences those old voices.

I am denied both, and I sit here, motionless, silently shrieking my defiance into the void. There are so many wrongs… So much have I done, things I am ashamed of in aeternal review before me. So much has been done to me, taunting faces, words and deeds. Actions to cause pain. Why can I not suppress those voices which do not come from my own actions? Am I responsible for those as well? Have I caused it, indirectly? Did others bring me pain at my invitation? How could I have invited this? Perhaps my subconscious has betrayed me, signaled beyond my understanding that I desired this.

I would flee this torment, escape into the music I so enjoy, and drown my cares in the intoxicating froth of my imagination, but the music doesn't catch upon my soul as it used to. The intoxicants brewed by my imagination are as water, and the illusion falls, flailing strangely as the mind that generated it also rejects it.

I would flee this torment, check out in front of a brightly lit screen, and watch others relate their tales through pretended word and deed. They do not engage. I am not the audience these tales were made for, and I am unable to remain interested in them. Somehow, I feel as though I have debased myself for trying.

I would silence these old voices, but I have not the skill. I would flee these old voices, but I carry them with me, everywhere I go. How can I hide…from myself? I would reject them, eject them, but I fear I cannot. To cut away something that feels as though it is your own flesh is difficult enough, but to cut into your own mind is an entirely different discussion. If I do not…what will become of me? What madness will leak through, if I am left unattended? What will I become, if left to fester long enough?

I hope never to find out.