Here you are again My sometimes friend You came in the middle of the night I lay awake with you wrapped around my heart And there you stayed for a while. I dozed on and off with you as my constant companion And then as dawn broke You welled out of my eyes
And burst from my lungs
in sharp heaves Repeated silent screams through my open grimacing mouth As I tried to expel you With my breath (Quietly as my daughter slept) And yet, you stayed. Morning came The sun shone brightly and yet, you clung to me.
How can I get you to leave me? How can I soften you? Make you easier to bear?
You have come before And I know you will come Again Not the ever-present ebb and flow Of breathing But an occasional visitor
More perhaps like a yawn Not constant But inevitable. Perhaps we need you but for what? What purpose do you serve? You have come once before Heralded by an anesthetic At other times by some loss By heartbreak This time, You come with them all! Are you three times as strong? Or am I just weaker now As you seem to break me Like never before?
I hit back at you With music With the voices Of my friends Of my child The beauty of nature With the flow of my pen.
Always, you creep back
A game of chess I play With you, Sadness.