Alone Together
by Odin Roark

How communal
this loneliness,
this acceptance,
this isolation
of anxious tranquility.

For where might one venture,
find no disturbance,
no coercion,
and expect anticipation’s reward?

Doesn’t solitude know well
the dichotomy of thought,
the imagination of heart,
the privacy of dreams?

And does not therein…

Reside the sense of peace,
knowing that outside influences
have little effect on one’s inner-fortress,
this bastion of resistance,
experience conditioned,
rendering impotent repeated assaults?

And to defend such a state…

Does not one rely
on the integrity of heart and mind,
its armor forged from acquired truth and suffering
to defend nescient invasions
opting to imprison virtue
and obliterate lessons learned?

In battles won,
freedom rejoices quietly
as humanity’s yin and yang,
time’s collective oneness,
enjoins with life’s infinite grace
to once again be...

Alone together.