Painters and poets and playwrights
Have spent centuries convincing us that
Grief yields greatness
Out of sorrow is born supremacy

But the truth is
Great men are great men
Despite their bleeding wrists
Despite the misery carved into their bones
Despite their cut off ears and their stillborn infants

Art is the favorite daughter of brilliance
Who melancholy so slyly tries to steal as her own
To showcase as a gem
Amongst her own worn-out children:
Agony and suicide and irreparablilty

There is no glory in weakness
There is no museum to honour
Pain rolled up in a corner
Willing itself to stop existing
There is no concert arranged for a man
Who furiously runs his bow along violin strings
To produce ear splitting screeches

You and I will not colour our broken hearts
Shades of crimson or indigo
Nor will our ink stained fingers supply a voice
To a tortured soul's invisible turmoil
Instead pain will turn us into a monster
Or a recluse
Waiting desperately for that lightning flash of epiphany
To convert what little is left of us
Into a factory that churns gold