Responses for people who want me to cheer up
1. No
2. this isn't
emotional McDonald's
You don't get to have it your way
this is more like I'm
a three-star Michelin chef of feelings
I am constructing complex, interconnecting experiences
We'll call today's "molecular despondency"
and you will take what you're served
or you will go somewhere else
3.
4. No!
5. Sadness is not depression
I spent so long erased
Fought so hard to feel
Formed myself into ranks to
Assault my own blank walls
Broke through to feel again
And if all that's on the other side right now is sadness
I/will/take/it
6. You can't have my sorrow!
I built it myself
out of popsicles sticks and empty milk cartons
in the hospital where it was the only thing
they let me keep at night when they took my shoelaces and my cords
it is the only thing that has always been mine!
7. Look
my fire went out
I was unmade
This body burned out
But I promise
I have formed what's left into a perfect
egg
within which to rest unborn you see
when one wears of this world
there must be an ashen time
before one can again
be fire