(Always a Stranger is the first of five we will be running by Fabrice Poussin this week. Dale is by far a better judge of poetry than I am, but I think just about anyone will see the quality in this poet’s writings–Leila)

I feel the crushing weight of all those lives

foreign to me, and I know they do not understand

the pain mine, factor that seems to define my existence.

I think of those who may have loved me once, who perhaps

care for me a little today, but they move on without looking back

they have their own lives to live, and I stay frozen as a statue.

I cannot fathom the immensity of this punishment,

a continued torture that ravages my body and soul

for decades, I have been condemned to aloneness.

To realize that I cannot be another adds to the yoke

as I am so thoroughly trapped in a life I am beginning to abhor

useless, ugly, unwanted, will it not end today?

Fabrice Poussin