• lone·ly
  adjective
• without companions; solitary.
  "No, I was myself, and that was enough."

it seemed unbelievable that any god could
be so perfectly in tune with my heart.

As soon as I was old enough, I would run away for days at a time. I would take what money I needed from my mother’s purse, and hitchhike to any city I could reach. Looking back, I realize how odd it was that her purse was always so full of cash, and I believe it may have been the closest thing I ever received to her blessing.

By the time I arrived at whatever destination I had arbitrarily picked, it would usually be night. I would walk around the darkened streets, drinking in the sodium orange, looking at the lit windows of the tower blocks that surrounded me, each one a small, cozy den of warmth and humanity, and reveling in my distance from them.

Sometimes, I would pass another late-night traveler on the street, and I would hate them. They shattered the distance, my cocoon of quiet stillness, and I wished with all my heart that they would simply disappear.

And one day… one of them did.