one more thought, sometimes you need your loneliness as much as your companion, the one that's always there, the companion of your own loneliness, the secret vitality that comes with being alone. then finally i might put the poem that arrived in my box this morning, the poem called loneliness.

Here I am, alone in my room, feeling lonely.
Loneliness is horrible. This is an objective
statement. Sometimes I think to objectify
something means to isolate myself from it.
Sometimes when I’m alone I think of you.
You do not seem the type that is ever alone.
I don’t feel like watching television or
listening to the radio. There’s no one
around to visit. I think I may read Genet’s  Our Lady of the Flowers a bit later. I owe
Jack a letter but I don’t feel like writing
one now. I’m sure that right now, at this
very moment, thousands of people are feeling
pretty lonely. The knowledge of this is not
very consoling. I have read about lots of
famous men who have spent their lives in
solitude. This isn’t very consoling either.
I wonder if there really is something con-
soling to a lonely man. That is, besides
another person. To distract myself I’ve
written out the line “In the abalone shell
lives the abalone.” I’m not sure what an
abalone is except that it has the word
“alone” in it and sounds just like “lonely.”
It must really be lonely inside the abalone
shell. This is not an objective statement.
I once read that if you think long enough
about something, you yourself start to take
on the characteristics of that thing. Maybe
I should think of a crowd having a great time.
But I am thinking about you again. We are
having a great time, only I’m feeling sentimental.
I’m willing to bet the abalone is not
a very sentimental animal. Webster’s New  World Dictionary lists an abalone as a sea
mollusk with an oval shell perforated along
the rim and lined with mother-of-pearl. The
word preceding abalone in Webster’s is abaft,
which is the rear or stern of a ship. I
already know the lonely feeling one gets
aboard a ship, standing at the stern, late
at night, watching the stars drift by. Two
words down from abalone is the word abandon.

Loneliness
by Scott Cohen