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How can it be
How can it be that sadness affects your whole body?
How does it soak out your brain,
travel to the end of your fingertips
where they start to shake.
Your heart stops beating
and then starts again,
slowly, trying to regain the strength.
Your breaths weaken.
You remind your lungs how to breathe.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Your body slowly starts to remember what to do.
You let it take control.
It knows more than you do.
Your vision blurs.
Tears are on the edge of eyes.
Threatening to spill over
into the real world,
where you’ll be forced to accept
that you are indeed sad,
that sadness has overcome you.
You refuse to let it define you.
So, you will force the tears
to stay where you think they belong.
You don’t let your body take charge of that.
You think you know more about the real world
than your body.
Once the tears are secured inside,
your legs fidget,
itching to run,
itching to escape.
Where would you go?
Where would you hide?
You stay seated.
and grasp your hands,
staring off into the distance
and try to remember a time when you were happy.
It wasn’t long ago
maybe yesterday,
maybe the day before.
But suddenly, you can’t recall what it feels like.
It seems a part of someone else’s story
that you read in a book
of a dystopian society.
Where something called happiness
used to exist.
But you have no recollection of it.
You have no experience with happiness.
It is a thing of the past
and you don’t think it will ever make it’s way back to you.
But then,
just when you think there’s no hope left,
you see the sun,
fighting it’s way through the trees
heading straight for your heart.
Your favourite song starts to play,
the words echoing in your head,
resonating in your heart,
clearing out the bad thoughts.
A dog wags his tail.
Children call out in the distance.
You taste the sugary sweetness of a cookie on your lips.
Such cliche things.
Such simple things.
Such simple things to suddenly remind you
of the world around you,
hinting that it still exists.
Your sadness isn’t the end of the world.
It isn’t the end of your life.
Nor is it the beginning.
It is just a day,
that you will conquer
just like all the others.
And when you do, your life will be waiting for you
to take control
right from where you left off last.
