Why is it that the human race always tries to convince me?

Drive this car

like me

like her

buy this house

care what I have to say

politics

“you’re either for us or against us.”

“I am for myself.”

“you are so selfish,” they might say

for the most part, I just want to be left alone

but being alone

is not okay

they don’t understand it

not knowing

the pleasures of solitude

I could spend my whole life

alone

by a big blue lake

it’s not a waste

and

the spiritually sick

talk about empathy

constantly

or their love for their fellow man

and don’t forget women

to say “man”

is offensive

Everything about me

is wrong

and everything about them

is right

Empathy?

their vacations are captured

in pictures

their lives

held prisoner

in photographs

documented

for other people

while I go on living

without traces

unseen

in the rich gold and orange fiery blackness

of my summer sunset.