Despite the fact I keep a fairly personal blog where I divulge many of my inner secrets, I still often find myself struggling to move beyond the loneliness that permeates my life. There’s an underlying sense that I’m simply not seen by those I would consider closest to me.

(And if I had a therapist, they’d probably find reading through many of my blog entries a veritable land mine of information!

To my future therapist, if I ever reach out, please know that I’m quite self aware of all my foibles. The problem I find is determining what actions I can take. And yes, I know all about meditation and positive self-talk, but the fact remains I often feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water in a shallow puddle. )

Which is why I laid it all out in poem!

Admittedly, dear reader, I’m not much of a poet. The usual rules are utterly confounding and I simply don’t have the time to try to fit everything I want to say into a precise meter or have it match a specific rhyming pattern.

Since prose is my forte (or so I like to think), what poems I’ve attempted in the past have usually just been free verse.

Even then, people find ways to format free verse poems to look artistic in some shape or form. No so with the one I’ve transcribed below.

Poetry is an art I’ve barely scratched the surface, let alone mastered. But I did find it an important medium to transpose my rather morose thoughts. Ones I’ve struggled with for a long while, and which were brought forth as I played through Life is Strange: Double Exposure (yes, this is the poem I alluded to in that blog entry).

For context, my life is a fairly boring one. My greatest desire? To have someone I can talk to. Really talk to. Instead of just the empty void in which I pour most of who I am into.

And yes, I do have friends. But throughout the last half of 2024 and even into 2025, I’ve found a certain disconnect. Especially among usual friendship circle of people I’ve known since high school.

Perhaps it’s because the relationships between every single one of us has already been long established. Maybe it’s because every time we do catch up, I feel like my contributions are rather bland. Or that every single conversation I have centres solely on the other person and I’m barely able to get a word in edgewise.

The crux, of course, is the unshakeable belief (even though I know it’s probably not true) that nobody really cares about little ol’ me.

I can’t help feeling that if I were to delete all my social media and vanish, nobody would feel my absence. When my thoughts are at their darkest, I often wonder who might attend my funeral if I were to die. Would they even know I was dead?

In the past, I was able to count on the ex-friend to, at least, mourn my death. If only a little. After all, they did often say I was one of the most important people in their life. Yet, when I made the very difficult decision to take a step back, their casual dismissal of everything I poured into that friendship was what hurt me the most.

Maybe if they had fought for our friendship, I might have stuck around. As it was, without the acknowledgement I needed, or proper closure, I often found myself wondering how they were doing – whether or not the other mutual friends we shared had been able to step up and help them in ways I might have been able to do.

Now? I’m a little unsure of the lives I’ve touched and if my presence ever made it better. It doesn’t help when it feels like everyone else is holding themselves at arms length away. When they all have their own separate chat groups. Or when I’m always the last to know about a piece of gossip.

For years, I’ve longed for a best friend. Someone I could confide in and who, in turn, would confide in me. Someone who could provide comfort when I was feeling down and be there for me when times were hard.

Yet I find I’m often finding solace in the worlds of make-believe. Whether it be video games, film or novel.

I suppose it helps when you can live inside the heads of the characters and get to know them beyond the facade most put on.

But what kind of life am I living if all I’m doing most days is escaping into fantasy because I don’t have anyone else to turn to?

And like most people, I fear that when the end does come, will I even leave a mark in the annals of history? Though I do see myself as a good person, I know I’m as fallible as the next stranger I bump into on the street. I mean, at time of writing, I’m still brainrotting over CaitVi/ Violyn. Sue me. I’m probably definitely maybe gay.

Yet, I also know I’m not anyone special. I haven’t created charities or movements for the benefits of others. Nor have I donated much to a good cause.

At the end of the day, this humble blogger is but a nobody and no one.

ENJOY THE POEM!

---

Legacy springs life eternal

Or so the poets say.

I live between the lines

Pondering time unspent of just one more imaginary summer day.

Between two worlds I oscillate

Never fully in each

Dreaming of what could be

Where swords and magic and powers of flight were just within my reach

~

For years I’ve explored

A myriad of lives

Experiences both foreign and familiar,

Where I step into the shoes of others and thrive

Or weep at the pain and sorrows.

Seeing mistakes repeated in an endless cycle;

Devastation wreaking havoc, hollowing out my core.

And when I step out, all I seek are crinkled corners and low belly chuckles.

~

In stories, I am the hero.

Reality is a harsher mistress.

Hour upon hour I sit

Drowning in the mundane distress.

Where I could venture forth on a grand adventure in one,

Knowing failure was naught but a lesson,

Sheer panic and anxiety keep a steady hand

On my shoulders they rest in the other, leading me further down the path of obsession.

~

At journey’s end, what remains?

In the eyes of the world, my half-life is naught but a blink

Gone, never to be seen.

Who have I touched? What impact have I made? Bombarded by questions as I stop to think.

Words were meant to be my legacy.

From them I sprang forth, taking joy in their providence.

But I am one of a million

Hopeful of success from simple happenstance.

~

Yet, for now, the path leads ever onward;

It is the road less travelled.

For eternity, what price is too much

For my name to be remembered?