“Distance” by Regan Doherty / “Untitled” by Shashank Salgam
Shashank Salgam
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“Distance”
Regan Doherty
It’s suffocating
being so alone.
Surrounded
but separate.
Within
but without.
An onlooker
who stares instead of sees:
there’s no understanding
in this isolation.
Some cruel captivation
where one is the attraction
but neither is noticed.
Any feeling of belonging evaporated
when I realized it has always been
and will always be
their lives: my intrusion.
Their gaze: my wound.
Their music: my noise.
Their forms and figures never known –
never understood –
let alone picked apart from the crowd.
The inescapable throbbing from sounds
that fly and marr instead of mean.
Too hard. Too fast.
Hitting where it hurts because
these wounds have festered.
This noise pains.
There is a silence to this sound.