Loneliness

Loneliness is a rail-thin beast, clawing and craving at my gut. "I need, I need." It's got wide saucer-eyes, staring and searching, always hungering. Its stark honesty makes me ashamed, this bit of humanity I can't cut away from my soul.
Craving and cowering, an instinct gone mad in its state of neglect, reducing me to tears, making me stay up late and stare at the four walls, wondering why it won't shut up.
It's like a mewling infant I want to smother, this soft spot of weakness in my carefully built armor.
It calls and calls, receives only a distant answer across the air, over the miles, without the warmth of skin on skin. It calls and calls, won't it ever shut up?
How many horrible crimes are commited in slavery to the beast, how many killers only wanted warmth when the hot blood ran over their hands, the blood of resistant victims who would not respond to the cry.
I have no doubt that I am erasing this tomorrow morning.