I raise you

Melancholy

you call it melancholy

i call it a deep connection to this world

empathy with mother earth

understanding my permeability

i am not strange or perverse

i am not more extreme than others

i just feel things deeply as my own

do unto others, for they are part of you

i remember crying in bed as a little girl

i did not know why i was sad

i rationalized even then that maybe

i was crying for all those i had lost before

perhaps this melancholy is chronic

diagnosable, medicatable, changeable

but it speaks from a place that is real

and to numb it out would be false

masochistic maybe, stubborn for sure

but i know that worse than pain and hurt

is numbness to the world around us

to not feel is far more terrifying

so i will take my melancholy

and raise you your prozac, your blasé

for i am willing to bet that i will fare best

even with the sadness i carry in my heart