the distance

the eyes that skew away again
from what i have known all along
betray i’ll never be one of them
a stranger to their bonny world

their monuments hold to gravitas
even when living memory fades
as i maunder these streets alone
dust sieves through my pantomime veins

a thousand years ago today
the only space i’ve left for feeling
when i realise that no one’s waiting
that their light is all yet not in all
then i’ve never felt so far away

well, it’s not always been suffering
they tap me whenever i’m of use
yet their smiles mask the expiry date
a time to back off, to know my place

& i see that their sun too has left
will not anchor me to my shadow
that their moon with its pinprick halo
will not grant even slenderest grace

a thousand years ago today
the only space allowed for feeling
when i realise nobody’s coming
that their light is all yet not for all
then i’ve never been so far away

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

sometimes…

sometimes a lone leaf on a tree
has more poesy than a whole book
sometimes a lone page in a book
has more mosey than the hole in me

sometimes a lone me in a tree
has no more pith than a hole for a heart
sometimes a lone hole for a heart
has no more kith than cliff and scree

is this how it’s gotta be
an empath tipping from reality
into the inscrutable

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

GUEST POST // After Goodbye by SonOfDewangan

Two winters have already passed by
Two whole years without sadness, without joy.
The memories are still alive & fresh in my mind
Not alone, but still lonely most of the time.

Imagine a world where the past was different
Where we wouldn’t hurt each other
Our suns shone alone on different skies
Where our tears still rolled out
But not through each others’ eyes

A butterfly passes me by,
wings carrying storms of your place.
Sunlight reflects on its wings.
As if a long forgotten melody it sings

Carry on, as if it doesn’t matter.
We have been long alone together

Carry on, it doesn’t really change.
The fact that our lives we live are strange.

Carry on, Carry on till the piper plays.
Carry on, till the our paths cross again.

by SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

SIX WORD STORY #74 // Winter…

…built a frozen tower of solitude.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #643 [23/09/2977] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of a strange phenomena. It was a lonely phenomena that kept happening in all the wrong places to all the wrong people, so naturally it was feared. But you shouldn’t blame it, truly. Its intentions were the right ones, and there’s nothing wrong with trying to make the wrong places and wrong people right, eh?

So, how did this lonely phenomena present itself to the world? Well, in the only way it knew how. It was a presence in a room—the darker the better. It’d sneak up to the wrong persons and whisper the right things, right into their ears. Yes, the right things. Right into their ears. No wonder they shat blue lights! Anyone would. And as they shat themselves, the dark room would become lighter and bluer so that there was no darkness left at all.

The lonely phenomena thought it was doing a good thing, but when the room became well lit, the people it had whispered to would see that there was nothing there, and shit themselves even more. They’d freak out, maybe even cry a bit, and run screaming from the room. And so it was that everything became wronger. Wronger and wronger. So wrong, in fact, that the lonely phenomena eventually gave up and stepped off a very tall building one day.

No one has had anything scary—or even a little untoward—happen to them since.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019