Can loneliness be a disease?

I better get diagnosed with it.

I want to be isolated, aloof;

Yet, yearning for a soul's embrace lingers.

Can hallucination be a disease?
I think I'm hallucinating—

Of my phone vibrating,

when it is not;

Assurance of having a text,

when there is none;

Maybe someone remembered my name?

Only to be forgotten in the next moment.

Can longing be a disease?

Pain persists longer than pleasure.

Haven't I felt it?

Haven't I seen it crippling towards darkness?

Haven't I tried to escape it?

Haven't I feared to clasp onto it?

Yet, I'm desperately longing for it—

By distracting myself:

Smiling, while looking at the digital tapestry;

Blushing, while dreaming over technology's embrace;

Sinking, while immersing within cacophonies;

Shattering, while Like-ing/Care-ing/ Love-ing the luminous smiley faces;

by being numb, with each teardrop

by being distant, at every touch

by being dead, in every breath.

Drowning with

Insufficience, inconvenience, incompetence;

Am I allowed to hold on to you?

But you are waves of serendipity,

Moving forward in each clutch,

Penetrating through the ever increasing void 

Of my fingers, skin and mind;

Never stopped for a moment, never looked back—

While I'm drowning,

I drown within your unrecollected memory.

Rohini Zakaria Oishee is a lecturer of English at East West University. Sparks of poetry tend to flicker within her the night before the exam. You can reach her at [email protected].