Hermit crab

In a futile attempt to dig a little deeper
all others forget it; and slowly crawl away.
Up and around again
brought back to the surface
our little hermit crab finds itself alone.

It has grown from it's trials
and now is more magnanimous than each of it's peers.
But to what avail,
if it's friends have truly forsaken it?
No feelings are worse than a forced hermitage.

a/n When a hermit crab molts in the wild he digs under the sand for a few days. They travel in packs of up to 100 crabs. But if one molts then all of the other crabs leave and move on to somewhere else. The crab either finds a new pack or gets eaten; molting for a hermit crab is a terrible business, but because they have shells they can only grow bigger when they molt, so it is a necessary process. obviously there’s a little metaphor here and there.