An empty chair beside a frost-covered window in pale moonlight. Featured image for the poem The Stranger Awaits on Sayspire.

This poem about loneliness captures the quiet, unsettling presence of an unwelcome companion. It arrives like a draft slipping through cracks, never invited, yet always near. In these lines, loneliness is given shape as a stranger lingering at the door.

Loneliness,
a distant member,
seldom welcomed,
tolerated from afar.

Uninvited, its prints at the door,
whispering greetings 
a draft through unseen cracks.

The stranger awaits.