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Writer's pictureJafei Pollitt

I Don’t Talk About Sadness A Lot.

My sadness is

like when you sleep on your arm

for too long.

Waking up to realize it won’t move

Picking it up and watching it lifelessly

bounce

back on your pillow.

Knowing you have to wait.

My sadness isn’t sharp.

It’s numb.

Incoherent.

It lulls back and forth

wandering around the empty space

I’ve carved out for it.

Looking for escapes I never built.

I don’t experience it like I’ve seen.

It’s not fierce.

In fact, it doesn’t even know what it is.

It’s like a child running in circles

playing alone and not knowing

any of the rules.

I never gave it time.

Time to process

to grieve.

to imagine

to develop.

It was for the best,

I thought.

If I gave it my time,

I would be stuck in a vast

hole of my own digging.

With dirt walls

crumbling in as I tried to

crawl away from the things

which make my head hurt

and my stomach gnarl.

But now I’m here.

With my sadness buried

starting when it was only a

child.

I hear it mumble songs.

Songs that if I heard the lyrics

would send me down to find it.

But I refuse to hear it.

I refuse to take up the life that it was

All the pent-up sorrow

will crush me in

like a hollow ornament.

With it stowed away,

though,

I’ve lost other things it used to make.

Like loving until my lips bled

And letting all of my being

bask in the pounding light

of the summer sun.

Intensifying every moment of my glory.

It was such a complex

and colorful feeling.

It had it’s blackness,

but it mixed with the

burned oranges and royal purples

that lay scattered inside it.

It sent me into a

cathartic war.

Forcing me to fight out

whatever heart-clutching thing

was holding on to me too tight.

It’s been too long

too many days have passed

to come out just once.

To carol one verse

and it’s gotten lonely.

Like sitting in a quiet winter

with no warmth or sound.

I feel angry towards my sadness

for guilting me

and making me feel like

my life could be lived

with much more

intensity,

and intent.

So angry that my fists go white

and my screaming roars into

the canyon of myself.

I get so infuriated

irrational.

Blurry.

Because I know it’s right.

If I had let it out

then I would be able to

feel the touch of skin like electricty.

I would be able to look into

others eyes and find links between us

never spoken.

I would be able to feel the raw,

personal truth of pain.

And recover from it.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.

I want to put it off

until the end of time.

Never deal with it and just watch others

who let their sadness

take part in their life.

Of course, life with it will never be balanced

be organized

be simple.

But without it life is

without it.

simply put, it gives people

the struggle to survive from

and grow and learn

and love so intensely

like thick, rosy blood

dripping out of the heart.

Sadness is supposed to take its time

from what I’ve seen.

It takes its time and draws itself out

like string being pulled

from one spool to the next.

Sadness isn’t meant to be held prisoner.

It’s meant to dispell itself over the course

of your life.

Covering your entire body

from moments to years

and eventually absorbing back into you

letting you experience the other states of feeling

and appreciating them for what they’re worth.

What I have done

will result in

a restless

agonizing

split moment

of complete engulfment.

Where the sadness will not take to the pores in my skin,

but lay on top enjoying the fresh air.

It will never feel the need to

retreat back into the doorless

cavity

it grew up in.

And that is why I don’t talk about it.

because for me, it’s not there.

it’s not heard

it’s not coming out.

My sadness is without context of the world

and will explode in a fiery fit

to which I am not ready to endanger myself in.

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