Solitary Man

by John Grey

Sometime, it’s like training
for the monastery.
You wake in your cell of a bedroom.
It’s cold.
The floor feels stark
even when it’s carpeted.
Sounds are kept to the minimum
of those you make.
But for the refrigerator
which hums like prayer.

Cereal, eggs for one,
reheated coffee.
Shadows that need not be sourced.
Ideas that bounce off themselves.
Memories, some with their good points,
but always leading
to where you are now.

It wasn’t always like this.
What you miss
is not so much the feel of another’s flesh,
but the validation:
that the warmth of the sheets
is not all coming from you,
that the crust you set aside
will be nibbled on by someone.

You were not meant
to be a solitary man.
You have needs,
first and foremost,
the needs of others.