do you think i’m good at being lonely?

if being lonely means
being unable to say
‘i love you’ to my parents
despite having worked up the courage

if being lonely means
being unable to say
‘i missed you’ to my friends
even if i did, quite a bit

then yes, i am
very good at being lonely

if being lonely means
being able to deal with it
then no, i am
catastrophically bad at it

how much will i dare
to give people chances
how long till i don’t feel
like i’m walking a tightrope
chest always tight
smiles always hard
even if i have
an audience
to impress

having found myself
in this unbearable, unavoidable
lonely stretch of road in my life
i wonder if it will be forever
and i live in the space between
the songs on my playlist
in between
the blinding pain
of living
not knowing whether
the devil fulfilled His promise
of metamorphosis
at the price of everything
i have in me
or did He forget?
how did the story go again?
i don’t remember.