A Valentine's Day Poem

A chill cuts my jet black jacket

And creeps up my arms and aching neck

To whisper loneliness into my ear.

Singleness Awareness Day.

I find myself

In an old church,

The wind tip-toeing through the wooden rafters,

And I play piano,

All alone.

I suppose someday, perhaps,

I will long for a day like this again,

Without a care but for myself

And the freedom of alone to bask in.

But tonight,

Flooded by discontent,

Squeezed by my own isolation,

I struggle to speak to God.

Much later, I walk the bustling mall,

And I see those workers

Who work because they've no one to go home to,

No girlfriend to call,

Nothing but the ridiculous electronic ping

Of gadgets that no one needs

And that, tonight, no one wants.

All the young female employees

Have gone home to kiss their boyfriends,

And so I walk among only the tired-faced riffraff,

Those who would redeem cruel time by making a buck.

I see the tall smiling faces of girls

Hanging out together in groups of five

Because they've as yet no masculine arms to hug them,

And their nervous, slightly-too-loud laughter 

Covers the otherwise overwhelming desperation

That perhaps they might never know the love of a true man.

I see the frenetic bodies of waitresses

Racing to and fro across linoleum floors

Trying to please unpleasable customers

On a night that will inevitably end with, “Well, that was okay.”

I see the hand-holding couples walking with half-smiles

Trying to fool the world into thinking

That everything is well between them

When this day simply covers (for

Oh so short a time)

A multitude of sins. 
Indeed, as today ends, 
Tomorrow will prove again that “the world goes forth to murder dreams.”

And yet, 
As today's dream finally dies, 
One refrain settles like a soft residue

Atop my unsettled soul: 
“Hear my prayer, O Lord.

Let my cry come to You.

Do not hide Your face from me

In the day of my distress.”