A quasi-elaborate free verse poem

How lonely are we, lost wandering souls?
Are we really we, or is just me, or just you, or he, or she?

Is feeling accompanied just an ephemeral state,
and yet solitude our permanent condition?

Are we all, if existentialists, alone, yet
affecting and infecting one another in our loneliness?

Is loneliness to dwell in feeling
in one's own permanent condition?
Can we, or I, ego, actually choose between state or condition?
Alas, the fleeting nature of companionship,
not always a road to tread upon,
But a momentously sudden encounter.




(Painting: Edvard Munch, 1895, Jealousy)