Random word #4: Lonely

 

It's the theme of my life, this loneliness that seems to part of my genetic code

passed down from grandmother to mother to me, I see her in her pale blue dress

lying on her back, cigarette smoke slowly curling upward

and

my mother sitting on the backyard with her dissertation materials,

only jumping to attention when Marc hit his head on the concrete pad.

I didn't exist

which is perhaps why lonliness is in my genes, but also in 

my experience.