The Shape of Sadness

Some things are too painful,

To depressing to think or say

How can I even begin to describe

How I’ve been since you’ve gone away?

The panic attacks consume me,

Yet my eyes won’t shed a tear.

Sometimes it gets so hard to breathe

Knowing I’ll never have you near.

My heartbreak is so overwhelming

Whenever I think of you;

So much so that I cannot handle it,

And I become numb anew

I’m told the pain will one day fade.

That the scar will heal with time,

But my grief has only gotten worse -

Aging like bitter wine.

I am so broken and so alone,

No one else ever understood

Just how truly messed up I am -

No one else ever could.

No one sees my sorrow,

It’s a sorrow deep and true.

For on the day that you died,

Was the day that I died too.

You were the center of my world,

My hero who could not die;

Yet we grew up and you got sick -

I learned forever is a lie.

On that day, why didn’t you wake,

And why did the doctors say

That you’d never open your eyes again,

And you had to go away?

Your heart gave out, it just gave up,

But why did your heart not see?

That without your voice, your beautiful smile,

That I am no longer me.

The sofa on which you passed away,

Has become a sacred place.

I cannot even look at it,

Without seeing your dying face.

I am not strong, I am not okay,

I never will be anymore.

Why could I not go with you

Through death’s painful door?

They say when someone dies

You should let them go,

But I cannot even attempt to try -

What do they even know?

It’s been years since I last saw you.

Since I touched your loving face.

Years since I’ve felt the comfort

Of your warm embrace.

I pretend that I’m alright,

That inside I’m not dead.

No one sees the thoughts

That echo in my head.

I’ve found the shape of sadness

Comes in many forms -

A smile, a laugh, a falsehood,

That mimics daily norms.

In front of others my sadness hides,

They don’t want to see my pain.

For it’s raw and brutal and dark -

This horror inside my brain.

Would that I could drown it out,

That I could make this mask be real.

Would that you were still alive,

And true emotion I could feel.

Oh how I wish I believed in heaven -

I’d even settle for hell.

Anything that would let me be with you,

Instead of being forced to say farewell.

Yet I don’t believe in an afterlife,

There is no reunion after death.

There is but eternal nothingness

Once we take that final breath.

I have no comfort, no hope divine

And how I wish that were not so.

If there was - I could do anything,

Except maybe let you go.

So how does one explain grief,

Or speak of depression grim?

The answer is that you cannot,

Some things can only be held in.