Love and Pain

Love and pain are intrinsic, intertwined
Like a walking stick to a man that’s blind
Both are a compass our body provides,
But from which of these evils should we hide?

“Love thy neighbor as one would thy self” --
How long has that book sat upon our shelf,
Amid dusty tombs of Aristotle
Virgil and Dante; Archaic fossils?

And God once said “Go forth and multiply” --
There’s plenty of fish in the sea: retry.
Alas the greatest minds have led me awry.
I have no answer to the riddle; why?

Ive been single my whole life, whereby,
Ive come to the conclusion: “Should I try?”
I’m not ugly nor rude -- nor am I crude,
Eternally glued to this solitude.

Perhaps I lied and dated just once, still,
One month of dates destined for the landfill.
I never found out why she broke my heart,
But I can say we weren’t good counterparts.

I don’t recall if it was love at all,
But being alone was a mighty fall.
Anxiety and depression took hold,
Nothing new, this twofold stranglehold.

What bothers me now is envy and shame
For, if I have been alone, who’s to blame?
Is it my own ineptitude at work?
Am I just a jerk? Have I too many quirks?

Forever alone seems to be my norm,
While others are getting married in swarms.
The Buddha believed in a lack of sex,
Yet had a son, the true antapex.

I ponder this now alone in my house
Avoiding the appearance of a louse.
“There’s someone for everyone” I have heard,
but nothings worse than a cheerless byword.

This is my life, the theater of the absurd.