The loneliest place in the world

I woke this morning with the dawn, naturally.

A few minutes later, an acquaintance I haven't heard from in nearly a year texted to tell me her former lover had died, unnaturally.

Suicide.

I saw that void again.
Immediately.

Awful in a way nothing else I know is awful.
Awful in a way that travels from outside of you to inside of you and stays.

She wanted to know what I knew about healing from it.

I remembered seeing you in my mind's eye, my friend.
You were walking on a blanched desert road.
No people, no cars, no buildings, no signs
No airplanes or clouds or satellites or angels
Just the unblinking sun and you walking
Carrying whatever was happening inside you.

At some point you came upon the skeletal remains of a phone booth.
All the glass had been broken out.
The black phone, metallic reenforced cord and receiver were there.
Maybe someone came to mind.
Maybe something started to rise inside you.
You lifted the receiver to your ear - silence.

The severed cord fell away, dangled, slowly swung.

Untold miles from anywhere,
Anyone.

No one to see or to hear or to understand
Or to try with you or to cry with you, Jim.