Soul Gaol/The Other Side

ALONE is the most dreaded word in the dictionary to me. It is empty, cold, devoid of flower or song. Cruel without joy.
Sharp to touch, it cuts through flabby muscle to the bone, and buries misery beneath the skin. When one has been visited by the beast of lonliness (for it is truly a beast of torment), they will be familiar with its lingering odour and bitter taste which chews to the spirits core.
Of course everyone wants to be ALONE sometimes, whether it be from family or friends, the word becomes COMFORT in this instance. A chance to gather thoughts and think sweet nothings, (or imagine morbid circuses depending on your persuasion). Alone time with voices in the background is refreshing but when a person is utterly ALONE, with nobody but whispers and reflection, it becomes terrible. Months grow tiresome, years go blind and hopless.
When you shout foul lullabies into darkness and hear replies echoing in their own tongue, it fills the heart with desperate tragedy. To be ALONE is the curse of the sad, being sad the curse of the lonely.
When one has nowhere to go but the grave, and no hand to shake save their own, the world becomes like a skull without skin or life. It is a tedious affair having a heart that beats for nothing, Being ALONE in the upstairs downstairs monotony of the home, no matter how splendid the house or pleasant its surroundings, the house becomes prison. The most wretched prison of all.
Wretched because everything is disguised with comforts and one may come and go as they wish, it holds nothing of the body. One may even tear it down, brick by terrible brick but would accomplish nothing. An empty home is a place of a thousand sufferings, holding the music of the soul in chains. Every single note is lashed to despair.
With each new dawn the heart prepares itself for fresh woe. If it skips, it skips by accident or murmur.
Were cherubims to play the music of a lonely spirit on their willow harps, the notes would fall dead and stain the Heavens with a sombre black.
The rules of the soul gaol are simple and few.
One is permitted entertainment but not appreciation. Good food and splendid gin but no taste. Breath is allowed but Life is not. One may go wherever one chooses but must (and will, for it is this reason the prison is disguised as home) always return.
A person who is truly ALONE may have everything, and still have nothing at all. It is the simpelest of all curses, to be born with a wooden spirit which burns solitude throughout Life.
Perhaps the most painful sting to a lonely soul is the fact that it will never learn the of crime which has forced it to exist in a sterile box, away from the laughter of the crowd. Was it a fallen angel? Had it wronged a God in a previous Life?
Entire days are spent scrabbling in the mind, searching for an answer, a piece of comfort. But the solution is hidden behind happiness on a shelf just out of reach.
ALONE. If it were a drug it would be feared more than heroin or cocaine, its effects devastating. It is little wonder when one reads of maniacs running amok amongst innocents, shrieking like banshees. Society contributes to their plight by ousting them from its fickle mob
It is of no use telling a misfit to reach out and find friendship because their mind is already numbed. They can play the jokers card and cultivate counterfeit relationships but when those are torn asunder the wounds bleed forever.
The sentence is Life, and what a foul life it is until death arrives like a golden shrouded saviour. Nobody can make a soul. It needs the hand of God.