Loneliness wears a long, plain white cloak. She always sits in the furthest corner of the room, taking up so much space with her empty presence that you can barely move.

She is a demanding companion; she hates competition and insists on having all your attention. Her embrace is the tightest and most uncomfortable one you’ll ever know. She screams with silence and tastes of tears.

She fills you with unbearable hunger and never takes you out for a meal. She’s the companion you never chose, and yet you’re convinced you will never leave her. She lies beside you in an empty bed, keeping you awake with her cold, soundless whispers.

The longer you stay with her, the more she takes from you: colours fade, sounds dim, sensations dull. In time, she even makes you forget you exist.

But you do exist.

Let that truth stir first as a quiet movement inside your chest, a small opening. The body never forgets its ancient rhythms. It knows how to breathe deeply; it knows how to expand. The breath reclaims your space in the world in the same way it did on the day you arrived here — that first full inhale declaring I’m alive, I’m here.

The lady in the white cloak feels your presence. She leans in, trying to fold you back into her chilled embrace, but something in you has already shifted. The breath keeps returning, steady and patient, something she cannot own.

With it comes a faint awareness of your own weight, a subtle hum in the air, a softening at the edges of the room.
The world settles in again, slowly. A trace of colour clings to an object nearby — hesitant but present. A texture rises under your fingertips, familiar and newly strange. Light falls differently on the walls, outlining shapes the cloaked lady once blurred.

As these small details gather, you begin to sense the truth she hoped you’d forget: the world is still here. Waiting. Recognising you as an essential part of it.

It might take effort to remain within the body, to hold it like an anchor. The senses are the doorways back — they don’t simply ask you to look, but to see; not only to listen, but to hear.
The body is the guardian of presence, and only presence can meet presence.

When you finally step outside, the world greets you with a gentle yet steady, shimmering aliveness. Sunlight gathers on your skin in a warmth you’d forgotten, a quiet confirmation that you belong here. Trees and bushes greet you with the tiny waves of their leaves; birds sing songs that seem composed just for you. The ground feels awake beneath your feet, steady and willing to hold you, encouraging each step.

Someone passes by and pauses to ask for directions. Their eyes meet yours when they thank you, and in that moment you feel seen. Later, your heart warms when the lady behind the counter smiles and wishes you a good day as she packs your groceries.

You don’t feel like a stranger anymore.
You belong here.

And there is comfort in knowing that somewhere in this big, beautiful world, there is a presence made to meet yours. Perhaps they, too, are stepping outside each day, letting the ground carry them in your direction. Even now, before you know each other exists, you can feel them in the gentleness of the world around you.

Sometimes the world even delivers a love letter from them.

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Today the birds told me that you love me,
The sun held me in your warm embrace,
Raspberries tasted of your kisses.

The world is doing such a good job
Of loving me when you are not here.