Disconnect

It is one of the absurd idiosyncrasies
of human nature that we sometimes
know the lives of strangers more
intimately than we do of those most
familiar to our everyday lives. We
deliberately restrain ourselves to
refrain from divulging too much
about our fears and our problems
to those we've long known, yet if
the time is right and the mood
overtakes in sensing empathy of
chance and brief acquaintance all 
is released in a stream of virtual
subconscious revelations, our most
vulnerable thoughts and concerns
theirs to consider, weigh and commiserate
upon. They too become old familiar
faces seen but thrice in as many years
when a need requires a reprieve and
the brief rapport of emotive concern
exchanges as strangers fulfill a role
spreading the balm of human concern
in the pain of life's solitary misfortune.