I heard a song once.

Its lonely, melancholy melody drew me in

For we felt the same.

My sister asked,

“How can you enjoy such a song?”

But I didn’t care whether it was good music.

I wanted to melt into its misery.

I wanted its strains to pull from me

My dismal, gloomy thoughts,

Like venom sucked from fangs.

“We pull apart the dark,

Compete against the stars…”

The voice keened about our lives

And its sorrow comforted me.

Beauty and sorrow,

That’s what it was.

Making lumps well up

In my throat, in my soul.

And it was the paradox of my life,

That when despondency’s cold fingers started

To wrap ‘round my heart,

Leaching its life-warmth;

Then I turned to sadness, to find happiness.

To dwell in gloom for a time,

That I might live in light.

And somehow, resurfacing, I could.