Loneliness

The heart reaches out, the conscience recoils. The result is the quiet gaze of the onlooker, the bystander’s posture. Seeing harm, feeling its weight, but remaining still. It is not lack of care that stops them, but fear of the moral work that true empathy would require.

What I asked was simple: If you believe in justice, start here. If you believe in access, help carry my case. If you believe in truth, stand beside my account. If you believe in care, risk being changed by what you hear. But Joe Ceci didn’t.

When the pain is intense enough, you cease to be someone in the world. You become a body against the world. The bench beneath you becomes strange. The air seems distant. Language cracks under the pressure. Even your name starts to feel like someone else’s.

My home is not tasteful. It’s not neutral. It’s not designed for approval. It’s loud. It’s strange. It’s unrepentantly mine. And it was never meant to be seen by anyone but me.

My loneliness is not about the absence of others. It’s about the collapse of shared reality.