An Introvert's Pandemic (Sol)

Always lusting for solitude
I walked unseen
A passing form among thousands
Safe within myself
I hugged the cool shadows
While others became the sun
I curled inward
Like a pill bug
Happy to be passed by
By every passerby

Now, I’m a lightning rod in a graveyard
My footsteps
My breaths
Too loud for my ears
Which yearn for the boom of thunder
I thought I loathed those I shunned
Little did I realize
That all the beating hearts in the city
Make up the beating heart of the city

Without them, the buildings are husks
The streets cold, black rivers
A mausoleum of potential
Tall, gray corpses in the chilly dawn
I will go into hibernation
Alongside the other waiting cadavers

I can only dream
That when I next touch a concrete wall
I will feel blood flowing beneath the surface
Let me be a faceless wanderer once again
Skirting a beautiful, chaotic stampede
Instead of a drifting specter
Haunting a sterilized wasteland


Tori Sol is a fantasy writer/poet who graduated from Bowling Green State University with a BFA in Creative Writing in 2016. They have been translating their experiences, their dreams, and their fears into the written word all their life.