A Thousand Million People

We are oil and vinegar, “you,” and I, 
you — the many, the people floating around my acidic psyche, 
the world filled with those who, like oil, slip easily through life, not overthinking every little reaction with an overreaction, 
and I sometimes come close, but never close enough, 
as audacious awkwardness, accidental overshares, my
prolifically pouring purple against yellow, are at best a joke,
as I yearn to connect but remain repelled apart — 
But maybe life itself is meant to be isolating, 
meant to be filled with silent thoughts and musings, 
shared in our solitude as we pass each other by.
We might as well be stars alone a million miles apart from each other
in galaxies that go on forever and forever.
Even together we are eternally elusive and empty spirits floating across the universe for a blip of time, 
seeking connection, yet also seeking that solitude, 
seeking silence, screaming silently;
Waiting for your train to pull into the crowded station, yet it never comes. 
You sit, patiently, then, restlessly, and watch everyone get on and off 
their on-time arrivals and departures, 
as the sun rises high in the sky and buries itself 
in blood-red sunsets and those hidden behind smoke and fog and missed
because you shut your eyes for an instant and there goes another day —
another month — another year — and years upon years — 
you watch the world with open eyes and wonder 
will you ever decompose enough for your molecules to 
merge with the masses, 
when will the stories swimming in circles around your mind
that stain your satisfaction with absolutely anything 
suddenly, 
yet softly, 
turn on mute, 
and perhaps you still are vinegar against humanity made of oil, 
but you no longer long to feel anything —
to connect to anyone with improbable intensity — 
since we enter this world alone and leave it alone 
and live in a falsehood of connectivity, 
at what age, if ever, does solitude seem satisfactory?