Let me make one thing quite clear.

Lonely and alone, well, they just aren’t the same.

Alone is being able to do infinite pirouettes in the sand and dirt

Running as fast as you can up a sloping hill through an endless grassy meadow

Splashing water into your hair from nearby puddles of glimmering water

Twirling as if you’re no one and singing gloriously out of tune and crying hysterically and laughing like a madman

And beaming as the sunbeams smother you with limitless warm kisses

And leaning dramatically against a large tree, pretending you’e a long-sought-after movie star,

Preparing all kinds of witty insightful answers to interview questions in your head for when you’re famous

Being one with the bark – tough love

And being able to lay down and spread out your arms as wide as they’ll go, flapping your angel wings,

And when you sit up, the ground is just as you left it, the grasses rising up from where you’ve been lying

Never having to worry about hitting anyone.

And a fife and lute sing sweetly together somewhere in the distance.

But now it is winter in the meadow.

The tree is dead and gone.

The ground is hard and you can’t twirl your feet through It anymore.

The water is frozen over.

And it’s snowing at night

And you have no coat.

And when you lay down and flap your angels wings,

You sit up and the mark is still there.

Solidarity is solidified as you turn around and see how alone you are.

The sky is clouded over

So you can’t see the stars

And the only sound you can hear is the harsh wind, pushing past little cold you to go somewhere warmer.

Which isn’t even the way wind blows but it is just desperate to get away from you.

That is lonely.