Grouped Alone

Tonight's writing group prompt was to take a word, phrase or image from one or each of the 5 books I brought in and use it as a jumping off point. I started one this way and half-way through ditched it to write this poem instead. We wrote for 20 minutes, and as often happens when you write short and fast, things still felt clumsy and dumb, but as also often happens when you read it out-loud, it sounded better hung in the air than in my crowded head. 

We are alone here
Grouped
Grouped alone
A lonely group of 12
We are here, the group of us
But each of us, alone
Unknown
To each other
And some unknown
To even themselves
 
What keeps us apart?
 
Well, flesh and then space
I have mine and you have yours
And between us is
 - Space

You cannot be with me
With me
With me
So that I am not alone

There is always space
Even in sex, when flesh closes in on flesh
Rubs in friction and
Space takes not a breath
In the distance

Then, you and me are two bodies
Connecting
But my self- my true, real self,
My inner self,
It is protected inside this shell
Of flesh and bone and tactile world

And you, yourself are hidden
Inside of you
And this flesh and bone and tactile world
Will not let us meet as such
Only feel about in the dark
Occasionally hitting spots that
Feel something like
Soul, and just as soft

But here, currently 12 souls
Hidden in bodies
Separated by space
Sit
In various stages of grieving and healing and hurting and happiness

We are on one planet
In one room
Feet all touching the same floor
All arrived of our own volition
For different reasons
And no fewer than one similar opinion
We are humans, just as humans have always been
In the grasps of melancholic longing
Slightly unhappy with how it’s all turned out
And occasionally able to see beyond ourselves
To the 12 other people
In the room