Learning To Live Alone Poem by RIC BASTASA

you lose them. and you do not really mind as they slowly
slip away. friends.

one says i am tactless, and the other complains
that i am subtle in chiding them,
insulting him without his knowing and only then
when he is caught in the midst of friends who laugh at him.

one says i am arrogant, and my superiority is not doing me
any good anyway.

my mistake. i must, they say acknowledge the mistake
of just being myself.

baloney. i do not give a damn now if they are like the stars
united to attack the sheen of my moon
at midnight.

it is enough. i am fed up. i sever what is severe.
i cut the umbilical cord that tries to
tell me what i should be.

baloney. i am different. i am purely myself now.
i walk alone and think about my own thoughts.

i touch no one now and no one touches me.
i am an island. I am learning to be

an island in front of you.