I somehow felt it to be one of the bleakest poems from you: more bleak in a cruel unforgiving way than a sad way. Like a candle burning in the room, everyone present and laughing and eating sweets, and the curtain, the furniture, all the room catching fire from the candle, slowly all burning and the people continuing to laugh, like insensible, and yet who you know will burn and shrivel at the first touch.

I defy anyone to claim they've never had a night like this. One of those terrible decades dragging themselves across a few long hours. It's one of those nights where all the little things we have to distract ourselves are gone, and we have no choice but to take stock in everything that's running through our minds. You're right, of course. The monster is always there, and it always know when we're at our most vulnerable. This is a stunning declaration of this insight. There's a sadness, a need to speak that runs through these words, and a faint hope that moves across each brilliant line that someone might be listening. I really can't think of anyone who's as good at you at writing something that's capable of covering as much as this poem covers.

We are jealous friends of solitude, as the great thinker said. An excellent description of the kind of night where the not happening is a scary happening in itself.

Wow... this actually fully absorbed me into that place and frame of mind. Not my first choice, but it speaks volumes of you I think. I feel this in a way that makes me wish I couldn't, but there are realities here we all must face. Well done...

Sublimely evocative. Your poetic voice is supple, absorbing.

Your style of poetry exhibits a lot of self-reflection, which is cool.