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.