The special tonight is homebaked Loneliness Pie.
We’ve run out of everything else the waitress says. Sorry.
The jukebox is playing Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture.
B-minor music for a dark and solitary place.
Somebody else must be here beside the waitress and me.
In late afternoon light shadows spread like rumors
Behind a person’s back, cutting off the day’s conversation.
Sartre said hell is other people so solitude must be heaven
Without angels. I ask the waitress if she believes
Loneliness is the ultimate freedom. Yes. They can’t take it away
Even if you live in a box. Janis Joplin sings how freedom’s just
another word for nothing…Does anyone think about
the loneliness of fitting room mirrors at 3 a.m.?
They reflect each other’s icy glare.