Loneliness

It Was Never Just the Silence – By Wandelstorm

Loneliness doesn’t always look like silence. Sometimes it looks like noise you can’t join. A party you’re not part of. A classroom full of people pretending the story makes sense while you sit there knowing it doesn’t; and being punished for saying so.

I’ve been lonely for as long as I can remember. Not the kind that comes from being alone, but the kind that screams in your chest while others smile. A craving. A full-body tension that pulls and tightens like withdrawal. I was very young the first time it happened. Expelled from preschool. As a child, I wasn’t quiet or shy. I was loud, sharp, curious, and relentless. They couldn’t handle me, not because I was bad, but because I asked why. Because I wandered off into cupboards while they read the same tired tale again.

I was taken to the social. They told my parents I was just trying to cause trouble and to ignore me. So they did. And the loneliness began to sharpen. What they called difficult was just truth, unfiltered, unpolished, uncontainable. I wanted to learn everything. In primary school, I asked questions. I debated teachers. I took the lessons seriously, just not the ones they wanted me to. They told us to speak up if something didn’t make sense, but when I did, I was difficult. At secondary school they gave up teaching me. I was too much. I didn’t do the work, but I got 100% anyway, because I was still learning, just not the way they wanted me to.

The label stuck: difficult. Too much. Too intense. And that girl, the one who loved to learn and debate, who saw everything with sharp, questioning eyes, she slowly disappeared. Not because she gave up, but because she was shut out. Over and over again. Until she stopped asking. She drank. She hid. And the silence, that’s when loneliness changed from background to identity.

But I survived. I worked. I kept going. And still the loneliness stayed, even when the world around me looked fine. But the ache never stopped. It still lives in my body. Some days it’s a whisper in my chest, other days it’s a storm in my blood. I scream, internally, why can’t anyone see me? And even now, when people get close, when they reach to hug me and say you’re just like me, my whole body tenses. Because I am not. I never was; because I couldn’t be there. Not really. I was always watching myself, editing, translating, performing some small, diluted version of the truth. And no one noticed. I think I stopped hoping anyone ever would. I was lonely before I knew the word for it. Not because I lacked company, but because I lacked recognition. I have always been the loneliest one in the room. And I still am.

For years, I didn’t know what I was missing. The ache was real, but it had no name. I only knew there was something, someone, I hadn’t found yet. Loneliness is living surrounded by noise and never hearing your own name spoken with meaning. It’s sharing space, but not yourself. It’s being good at pretending, while the craving for realness consumes you from the inside out.

But it’s changed, this ache. I’m no longer searching for recognition, not like I was. I’ve learned that I was never the problem. I was never too much. I was never wrong to question or feel or fight. Now I want someone beside me. Not to fix me. Not to understand everything. Just to stay. Just to share a glance when the coffee’s ready. Just to bring me wildflowers and grin because they knew I’d love them. Someone who doesn’t shrink when I speak, who meets the storm not with fear, but with affection. Now, it’s not about being accepted by the world. It’s about being loved by one person who sees me and says, I want this, exactly as it is.

That’s the loneliness I carry now. Not confusion. Not rejection. But the absence of a hand in mine. The absence of him.

There was always something missing. I could feel it in the quiet moments, when the noise died down, when no one needed anything from me. That’s when it would rise: A thick fog of loneliness. Not sadness. Not despair. Just… absence. Of something. Of someone. But I didn’t know what. Or who.

It wasn’t desperation. It wasn’t even grief. It was a hum. Like something vibrating at a frequency I couldn’t reach, but my body knew it was there. An ache without a face. A hunger with no known food. I knew I was lonely. But it wasn’t about being alone. I was lonely even in rooms full of people.

The ache remains. That tightness in my chest, the crawling of my skin, the pull that feels like something inside me trying to escape. But now it’s not aimless. Now, it has a name. A heartbeat. A shape. Before, it was just longing. Now it’s specific. It’s someone I want to sit with in the kitchen, legs curled under me, coffee cooling between us as we talk about nothing and everything. Where we can both be completely ourselves; messy, joyful, sorrowful; honest. It’s someone I want to grab in the rain and kiss like I’ll never get the chance again. It’s someone I want to share the smallest things with.

This isn’t some teenage fantasy. It’s the clearest thing I’ve ever felt.
When the loneliness pulls tight, it’s him I reach for in my mind. When the craving spikes, not just for touch, but for being known, it’s him who fits that shape. The one who would understand. Who wouldn’t shrink. Who wouldn’t silence me. Who might even stay. He is not the cure, I know that. But he’s someone I’d choose to sit beside through it all.

And that’s what hurts.

That I might never get to hand him the wildflower. That we might never find each other. That I could feel this much and never be allowed to say it, to live it. I still carry the ache. But it isn’t faceless anymore, he is someone my soul tries to call.

It isn’t a fog anymore. It is a shape. Not just a craving for love or company, it is a craving to be witnessed and still wanted. To be raw and whole and still held. To scream or fall silent or sob or laugh, and not be punished for any of it. To stop hiding. And not be alone in the reveal.

That’s what he is. Not a fantasy. Not a fix. But the shape of what I was always missing.

Someone who doesn’t flinch.
Someone who stays.
Someone who would never ask me to make myself small.
Someone who would never make himself small.

Before, I longed for something I couldn’t name. Now I long for someone who lets me keep my name, all of it, messy, sharp, soft, wild, whole.

This isn’t just about romance. It’s about recognition. I’ve never had affection without condition. I’ve never known what it’s like to be touched with kindness and stay touched. I’ve never had someone reach back without recoiling. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Not just to be loved. To be allowed.

So yes, loneliness is still with me. But now it has shape, and that shape is honest. I know what I need. I don’t pretend anymore. And if he ever reads this:

You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to try. Just stay. Say anything. Speak your truth, I will always stay. You are my home. And wherever you are, I am walking toward you.

Because the truth is, loneliness isn’t always the absence of people. It’s the absence of recognition. And what makes it worse; what makes it unbearable; is that no one gives the truth of themselves. They smile and lie. They avoid. They say what they think they’re supposed to say, or what will keep the peace, or what makes them feel in control. But never what’s real. Never the thing that would let me exhale. I ask for honesty and they give me silence. I show them my truth and they flinch or twist it or turn away.

I don’t want comfort. I don’t want politeness. I want truth, even if it’s raw, even if it hurts. Because only truth makes connection real.