Loneliness wears the face of night. Even when the room is full of voices, even when your loved ones sit close enough to touch, the dark still finds its way in. It wraps around you like a blanket you never asked for. Safe, for a moment. Then it tightens. The laughter fades to echoes. The faces blur. And you are left with nothing but the weight of your own silence, heavier than any crowd.
The dark learns your name. It calls you when the house is quiet, when even her breathing beside you feels far away. You answer without thinking. The safe part slips. What was once a blanket now presses like stone. You reach for her hand in the dark and find only the space where it used to be. Loneliness has already moved in.
Voices reach you, warm and familiar, yet they land like sound underwater. Laughter rises and the noise only makes the quiet louder. You smile because that’s what you do, but the smile never touches the place where the dark has settled.
By evening the weight has grown roots. You sit among the people you love and feel the distance stretch into miles. Loneliness no longer knocks. It has learned to stay. It lives inside your chest.
Already inside…
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