Grateful

In this shell I remain safe,
Within a crowd gravely misplaced,
Decimated hopes of fateful communion,
Solitude my only acceptable union,
Still there are few who dare persist,
Should my thorns dig in they resist,
Clashing against the scales of a lone beast,
Fires of a blue and scornful spite,
Fearing not the poison of my bite,
Valiantly they ride forward never to cease,
On reaching me within my stone Bastille,
Each kind word a negative is killed,
No reward expected for such selfless sacrifice,
My gratitude is the only payment that will suffice.