The Collective Experience

Fluorescent lights illuminating the windows,

like television screens that reveal:

millions of lives happening simultaneously

the diversity of humanity played out within fixed spaces

Of daily dramas drowning

in sorrow, anger, pain and hurt

either concealed in gritted teeth and downcast eyes,

or crescendoing into screams and broken pottery

There is cold comfort in knowing
that our realities can be separated by just a wall

that the real us can be hidden in the privacy of our homes,
our souls stripped down to its raw and tainted bones

because familiarity breeds all kinds of things:

boredom, contempt, impatience or
a reckless desire to break out of routine.