My sadness gets up at 2:00 am
Then again at 4:00
And 5:30
And 6:45
Then 7:00am

After the snooze alarm goes off
My sadness wears concealer and mascara to make it
feel awake
and pretty

My sadness hides behind a joke, a smile, a laugh
My sadness is scared of my happiness, who
Stops by once in a while
but just for a quick hello

My sadness doesn’t show through the way
I pull myself together in the morning like nothing is wrong
Or when people ask “how are you?” And replies “I’m good!”
People don’t see my sadness in the stories I tell,
the schoolwork I do, the advice I give them for their problems

My sadness doesn’t show up like other’s sadness
It doesn’t hold its head down in the hallway,
or sleep in until 12, it doesn’t go days without eating,
and it doesn’t try to keep happiness in a locked door

No.

My sadness only shows through the poetry I write
The music behind my earbuds
The short stream of tears when the doors are
closed and the windows are open hoping that just one
small bit of happiness will come inside and stay for longer
than a joke, a laugh, a smile.

My sadness stays in the shower longer than usual,
gets angry a little too easily, and cries a little too much
when watching The Notebook.
It doesn’t look like sadness or walk like sadness or talk like sadness
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t sadness.

No.

You can’t see my sadness.
It doesn’t show like a person with a
broken leg and crutches
You don’t take one look at it and know that
It is crippled and broken down

No.

My sadness is like cancer
You don’t know it’s there until you strip me down
peel back the layers of my skin
to see that I’ve been breathing an air like smoke
that’s caused a growth in my lungs and heart so
that each breath I take, each drop of blood that flows
through my veins feels like a weight on my chest that
can only be lifted with you laying beside me and holding
me until I feel as light as a feather souring through the wind
after finally break free of its bird. Its burd-en.
The thing that’s been holding it down, keeping it from doing
the impossible. But, possibly you can’t lift that weight.
possibly it’s only me that can lift that weight.

Possibly it’s been me the whole time.
Possibly I am the one that kicks happiness out the door
When it stops by because I don’t see happiness
Without you here
But how dare I place the image of happiness
Only in your presence when happiness can fall
In from any joke, or laugh, or smile
And happiness can stay past the sunset
Because you can still see happiness when all you feel
Is the darkness
Happiness can come in when the door
Is bolted shut because happiness doesn’t
Ask if it can come over
Happiness waltzes right in, unannounced, but
Always welcome.
So the next time my sadness is sitting at the table
And we are having a cup of coffee,
And happiness runs through the door
I will show sadness the exit
And then turn to happiness and say “it is great to
See you, please stick around for a while.”
And later when it gets up to leave
I will grab it by the arm and hold
onto it tighter than you ever held me.

Sadness is easy.
Sadness is fluid.

Sadness is a teardrop
that flows
to a river
Sadness flows.

Sadness is the rain
that pours
on a Sunday afternoon
Sadness pours.

Sadness is a long drive
in a strech of a road
without trees
without people
without houses
Sadness stretches
Sadness is never ending.

Sadness is looking outside
the airplane window
seeing nothing
but clouds
no ground
no greens
no blues.

Sadness is looking up
at the sky
at the vast dark sky
without stars
without clouds
without the moon.

Sadness is the abyss
Sadness is blank
Sadness is flat
Sadness is stagnant
Sadness is easy.

Sadness is not just tears
And sobs
And mourning and
Isolation

Sadness is the bags under your eyes
Because you can't sleep at night
Sadness is the indifferent silence where laughter used to ring

Sadness is empty chore where
Passion used to flow
Sadness is an occupied bed
With no sleeping scheduled

Sadness is the empty glint in your eyes
Where a twinkle used to shine
Sadness is a heavy sigh at
Two in the morning

And two in the afternoon
Sadness is losing interest
In people you used to adore
Sadness is slipping

From life everyday
But still breathing
Sadness is
Not sadness

This Sadness is Depression.
And Depression is dying
While you're still alive

This is just a boring sadness;
a low-lying, flat sort of sadness,
just a grey sea on a drizzly day.
There’s nothing major going on here,
nothing monumental, nothing tragic.
It’s all just a bit blue round the edges.

This isn’t an explosive sadness,
it isn’t a torrent and it isn’t rock bottom.
It’s just a boring sadness that hums steadily
and it’s fine, really. It’s fine.

It’s just a sort of storm globe sadness,
willing to become tempestuous when shaken.
The waves rush, lightening darts, thunder bellows,
but it all happens behind glass.
And it’s fine, really, because it settles itself quickly.
The sea goes flat again and it’s fine.

It’s just a monotonous sadness,
the sort that makes life dull and hopeless.
It keeps you in your bedroom
and it ticks off the years and still,
you’re in the bedroom,
yet to have your first kiss,
your first heart break,
your first night out,
your first airplane ride,
your first concert,
your first car,
but it’s fine, because it’s a sadness
that comes down like a fall
of paper snowflakes and it’s fine.
It’s all fine.

It’s just a boring sort of sadness,
so you watch other people’s misery instead
and you wish you could spare them the pain.
You become a twisted sort of sadness covet,
a sadness thief, stealing sadness that isn’t boring,
stealing sadness that seems worse than your own
And it hurts you and makes you feel worthless,
all these bungled attempts to rob sadness
but it’s fine, really. At the end of the day, you’re fine.
It’s just another bit of boring sadness and you are fine.

my sadness knows no love
my sadness knows no fear
my sadness knows no pain
my sadness knows no end
my sadness knows no happy endings
my sadness knows no sleep

my sadness knows lies
my sadness knows death
my sadness knows scars
my sadness knows eulogies
my sadness knows 2am voices
my sadness knows 4am shadows

my sadness - knows how to hit every Self-Destruct button and watch me disintegrate into a million and one pieces, and then hits the buttons again

Sadness is a burden
Sadness is a weighted rope
Sadness is a black hole
Sadness is the absence of
all joy and hope
Sadness is a moth fluttering
inside the darkness of a broken heart
Sadness is a crawling centipede
its seemingly endless creeping feet
tearing your insides apart
Sadness is a leaf left
to rot upon the earth
Sad ness is a fetus never
given birth
Sadness is the absence
of softly shining light
Sadness is the need to flee
with never the chance to take flight
Sadness is the rose
with no perfume and no petals
just a broken stem of thorns
Sadness is the lonely bird
that sings a plaintive song
in the darkness of a thousand
winter dawns

Sadness is a teardrop
that flows
To a river
It flows

Sadness is the rain
That pours
On a dim afternoon
It pours

Sadness is a long drive
On a particularly long stretch of road
Without trees
Without homes
Without anything
Sadness stretches
Sadness is neverending

Sadness is looking at yourself
In the reflection
Of a window
And not seeing
You
But a shell of you you were
And never will be again

Sadness is never leaving your room
Sadness is letting everyone move on without you
Sadness is disappointing your family everyday
Sadness is nothing
Sadness is my everything