Despair of an introvert

A notification: Reminder: You are an introvert. A bell icon in

Red, in case you missed it. Instead of text: an intense feeling, of distance or the

Sound of ‘lo-ng’, rounded, nameless, but its sister words:

Melancholia, brooding, the heritage not in the sentiments, but they

Take after the same indescribable form, hovering and growing

At the edge of the English language. The feeling of features forming in the murk.

Clay faces and grubby fingers. Not daydreaming either; it has more weight.

In conclusion, the feeling of introversion. So, the story starts

 

When this mood has taken me. Too many people, whose voices fight over and

Against my immediate recollection and I struggle to pin a name to the face

To the voice and what they had said. Too many, now, who pressed with their limbs,

Balancing against me, drawing attention to the crowd

Now, rattling along on my way home. Too many people make me feel far

 

Away, the distance keen, at the tip of my tongue, unquantifiable, so the

Best inadequate space like it is what lies between an enjambment. I

Feel far away. Try again: the name to the face to their words, find

Meaning and remember: it cannot be inconsequential. Try

Again: I grope for words that keep failing, lousy tools, to express the

Looming space behind a person, private lives, real people, things I just learnt and

Never knew about you. Distinct and individual and separate and

Even more that I will never have the privilege to know. I despair. What I don’t know

I construct and I fill the outlines of people with something.

 

And that takes too much from me and its weight

Sinks itself into a couch, my mind. Too much clutter and too much of me

In others. I tell myself that is enough

People for an introvert today.