The quality of the loneliness is different now,
because I had a kind of understanding with him.
It's like speaking a language nobody else speaks,
that has words for different ideas; even though
you learn the language of people around you,
you always feel a little foreign. You get used to it,
so that it doesn't seem bad or even, usually,
all that alone. But then you meet someone
who speaks your native language, and you feel
like you can fully communicate for the first time.
It's not until they go away that you discover
what it really feels like to be lonely.
