Loneliness of the Long Distanced Writer

I wrote a poem yesterday evening. It's the first time I've done this since 2010. I've wanted to write poetry again for a while, but I was so angry at poetry for a long time that I felt it would be impossible to write it again. I wrote it last night, but I think I've been writing it for a while now. I wrote after meeting a particular individual here in Japan and having an interesting conversation with him.  I haven't discussed anything intellectual like that for a while and I really enjoyed it. The poem has nothing to do with the discussion or with this individual. But something about meeting this person opened my brain up and spilled it out onto paper.

I need a muse, to be honest. Or rather, I need to write constantly and accept that people, places and things will come and go from my life and some of the people in my life (and the places and things) will be open enough to enable me to feel something. I feel like the relationships I've had so far in Japan have all be glass-slick surface ones. I don't like to say this about others. I don't think it's intentional on their part. It's a reflection of the culture. People hide themselves here. They hide their true nature, which is for me the most essential thing. How can I make it through this life without recognizing something deep within another person. I'm not even talking about romantic love.  Actually, far from it.  I'm just talking about some sort of true connection. Maybe it's a dead end though. Can there really be true connections? Is there really a private, interior space still in this world for us to explore? Or have we publicized everything, every little mystery that was there to be discovered?

Maybe the Japanese have it right.

Maybe, in order to exist in this world in this era, you've got to hide your love self away.