Melancholia

Who do you think you are?

Sneaking in here in the brightness of a beautiful day. The breeze blows so gently that the leaves dangling from their perch in the trees look like they are waving at me in slow motion. The birds are so content singing from the hidden recesses of the branches, the remaining butterflies of summer are flitting around, just above the grass, the smell in the air is a mixture of pumpkin pie, candy corn, and over-chlorinated pool — it’s perfect. I stand in the open window looking at the kids in the street playing catch and drawing with chalk in their shorts and t-shirts… squeezing out the last bit of wear from their summer attire before they are forced to put them away for the next several months — and you decide to show up now?

Who do you think you are?

Where were you when I needed you? When all I wanted was to hide in a cave of lonely despair. I begged you to come for me then but you stayed away, you never showed up, you kept your distance — waiting for the right time. You think you’re so clever. Showing up now when I wasn’t prepared. I see you trying to slip in under the door. I see you whispering my name from that lumpy old chair. I hear you whistling your song from the train tracks.

I see everything.

I hear everything.

I feel everything.

Who do you think you are?

Come and get me. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t fight you anymore. I don’t need to. You are so small and so weak, even the rabbits in the back yard hop around you without flinching.

I know who you are.

You are loneliness and despair and darkness and silence. You are fear and you are flight. You are wrong.

Who do you think you are?

I’m staying here, this time. I’m not following you onto the tracks. I’m not driving around in the dark. I’m staying here and breathing in the last bit of summer, I’m staying here and preparing for the changing colors of the leaves outside my window, I’m staying here… just long enough to watch you thud away — fuck off melancholia.

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