Melancholy

They ask me why I write about the future
like it has already happened,
why I write every poem like as if
my grieves have swallowed entire my longings;
like I am waiting on the shore for
the oceans to devour me whole.

So, I tell them—

Melancholy visited me one bright July afternoon
it twirled in a navy blue dress
(blue is my favourite colour, but you know that, don’t you?)
and danced at the tip of my pen.
Whispering me metaphors and rhymes,
it told me it would stay, and it did.
(unlike you)

Melancholy is a dead cocoon waiting to burst open.
It is the blue stain that ruined your white shirt.

I like melancholy,
so I write in the past tense.

I like melancholy,
so I stand
and wait for you
while the oceans
devour me

whole.

-

Sharodi H