Aleksandra Uspenskaia

It's lonely and beautiful
to be in a room
where no one, not really,
can understand you.
 
It feels like a heartbreak,
it feels like a hug,
you wish for to happen,
but know that won't come.
 
You stand there alone,
book in one hand.
While faces of strangers
swarm all around.
 
They're happy, some sad,
some angry and bad.
Some beautiful, really,
some ugly as hark.
 
Yet none feels like home,
none feels like house,
none you can turn to
when breaking apart.
 
You stand there alone,
book in one hand.
While faces of strangers
swarm all around.
 
The book soon turns cold
and heavy like stone.
The chatter grows louder,
you want to explode.
 
How dreadful it is,
to know you’re alone.
To know that your grief
is nothing at all.
 
But how beautiful, too,
to be free of the doom,
of having to be like a mindless baboon.
 
To beat yourself hard
and shout to the crowd:
“I exist, I exist!
I'm not bad, I'm not bad!”
 
You stand there alone,
and people stand by.
You glance at their faces
They all look like one.
 
What if they, too, in this merciless tomb,
feel lonely and empty,
like stricken baboons?
 
And nobody looks,
nobody cares.
So what? One might say,
but it won't be true.
 
Yet isn't it beautiful,
to be so alone,
that you yourself see
the upcoming storm?
 
Isn't it beautiful,
to stand there and watch,
how thousands of faces,
swarm right past your torch?