Sorrow

Sorrow

Sorrow was constantly with me.
She rarely ever bathed.
We lived in a hotel with large front room windows overlooking the ocean.
Long blue drapes constantly covered the windows.
Sorrow wanted me to see nothing.

I bathed alone at night.
Sorrow sat at the edge of the tub like a ghost haunting me.
Her favorite words were trust me.

Days dissolved into greens, into blues, into soft ice cream like colors.
At night, she’d cuddle up next to me, and I could smell nothing but rot,
yet I held her because I could not extinguish her porch light yet.

She had something I needed, a silence she held.
A silence hard and tangible,
Something you could bash with bricks and nails and cement
And it would not break. There was
no egg shell softness between myself and Sorrow.

There was definitely hunger.
At first, Sorrow had no taste for me.
She found me bland, and I found her insufferable.
Slowly, I found she had a second skin.
Together

We swam in the warm reed colored waters.
One night I walked in on her in the tiny red shed naked,
Curled up in the corner shaking uncontrollably
Crying with chattered lips.

I could tell she was embarrassed by my discovering her.
I never asked her why,
I just sat down in the red barn,
Took off my swimsuit, held her, and cried with her.

Her body was so light, weightless- I always assumed she was heavier than she was,
But she was tiny, fragile, soft.
She reminded me of some rare species of plant
Where the species had died and she alone
Had to carry its beauty, its name.
So began our long afternoons of crocheting blankets,
Planting gardens, dangling our feet in the glossy lake off the long wooden dock.
There was never much conversation between us,
But Sorrow showed me she knew tears
And I showed her I knew dancing.

Orchids began to crowd our backyard.
The inside of the house became cluttered with books, records, and paintings.
The day she left me I noticed a fresh red scar on her cheek.
I had never noticed any bruises or markings on Sorrow’s translucent pale skin.
I tried to touch it, but she just batted my hand away.
That night she left me.

When daylight announced her absence I was breathless.
Once again, I had been left. I had chosen to love another soul in fluctuation.
Even though, I instinctively knew she was gone;
I went outside to check the orchid gardens.
When I walked out into the main drawing room,
The blue drapes were opened exposing a grand opal sea.

I ran outside and ripped off my clothes and jumped in.
Finally Sorrow felt
I was ready to dive into
The blue that suffocated my heart for so long.