Pain and Sorrow

The shadow wears the sun for a mask.

It rises when the day should end, a hush,

And paints the world in shades of fading gold,

Before it drowns the last triumphant blush.

The pain is not a shout, a single blow,

But slow decay, the gnawing of a mouse.

It takes away the color from the glow,

And leaves behind a hollow, silent house.

This sadness isn't sudden, sharp, or new,

It is an heirloom passed from past to present.

A heavy deadness clinging to the view,

A constant, faithful, unwelcome tenant.

I walk on solid ground, or so I think,

Until a hole appears beneath my feet,

And with a terrifying, sudden blink,

I start a plummet, endless and complete.

The world goes on, a blur of sound and light,

But I am sealed inside a fog of grey.

The laughter of others feels wrong and bright,

A distant land I cannot reach today.

I long for words that never leave my throat,

To name the ache, to make the burden known.

A ship adrift, a silent moat,

And all my grief is mine alone to bear.

So I sit still, a quiet, patient host,

For grief that brings its own humid, tropical heat.

I offer it my time, my life, my most

Vulnerable self, in this slow, aching defeat.

The heart that should be brave is now a drum,

Pounding a sorrow that has no true end.

And in this silent prison, I become

The very wound I try in vain to mend.