Sadness isn't just one emotion
      it's a blanket
                   that warms the others
                                Warm, how unusual
            yet all my sadness
                               is never cold
                                                            ­                              never cool
                  I like things that are
                          cool
   and I do not like sadness
                               no, to me it is warm
                                     uncomfortably so
         as though lit by the fires of a hell I don't believe in
a torment in false hopes
         hope that is so warm
                just like sadness
                                       which is like
               hope and despair
              seasoned with twinges of guilt
                             and anxiety
  like the horrid blush that comes
when you've done something naughty
burning so hot you fear your face
     will melt
         that is what sadness feels like
                                                            to me
   wretched and horrid and never enough shame
       So silly, to think there's something that ought to go with it
                                              as though sadness itself were not enough

         perhaps they were right
            you can become addicted
                        to a certain kind of sadness
           like a drug of sorts
  a chemical cocktail you brew in your mind
          to douse your feelings when you don't want them
      because sadness is safe
                                                 it's familiar
                                                        ­                                        and you know how to deal with it


                                        so you think

                      even as it eats you alive from the inside
              you think you can control it
                         that you can stop whenever you want
                                and that's the lie of it
                                                        becaus­e
                                                        sadness
                           isn't just sadness
        it's everything else we don't need
                                     don't want
                            
         shame
                         remorse                                  
                                                     regret       
                              fear

          ­                   why hold on to them?
                         yet I can't seem to stop
           it pulls me back
addicted to the drug of familiarity
       funny, I think, to be addicted to shame
                                   touted so long as something to shy away from
         that regret is not worth the effort
   and remorse a thing
to let go of
        yet here I am
clasping them in my hands
  breathing life to them
      when they wither
terrified when they are gone
       a curse that I know will return
                     so why wish for it to leave?
           A life can be lived in the warmth
                          not a good one, albeit
                    but a life
                        instead of a lie
                     an addiction to sadness
                                 rather than
                         happiness
          at least I shall never be disappointed.