Loneliness and Loyalty

Loneliness and loyalty. It's so easy to get these words twisted in your brain, the prickly thorns of loneliness hidden behind the roses of loyalty. A promise is a dangerous word. It means you will be there for someone no matter what happens. It means you will not let them be lonely. And I think loyalty is like a pathological disease. Once you catch it, it spreads to every aspect of your life and soon you are loyal not only to your family, and your country, and your favorite sports team, but also you are loyal to the group of strangers you sit next to on the bus everyday and the barista that makes your coffee every morning: black with just the right amount of sugar. Because what else is life than pledging ourselves to valiant and worthless missions. Because through our loyalty we ease the pain of our loneliness and surely it is as effective at curing the achings of the soul as opium is at easing the ailments of the mind and body. And soon we begin to crave it, this desire to attach ourselves to a purpose higher than our own and who cares if the last relationship didn't work out when you can fling yourself into passionate love with the boy you met at the bar, hand him your heart on a string with a sticker that says loyalty because it feels so much better to have a stranger holding your heart than no one at all. And what if all of our promises are just that, the whispers of a lonely mind that is scared to finds its way through the darkness alone? What if loyalty is a dirty trick they played on us to make us feel like they needed us? What if I have already signed my soul to you and you don't even know I exist?