Down
one/one
It’s not a sadness like you read about in books.
No.
I wake up each morning and pull the covers away from my legs and stretch and groan to my parents about school. In the shower, I stare at the wall and I don’t think of death or dying or falling to a million pieces or shattering on the sidewalk because he's not here. My eyes are closed and the steam pools around me like waves of calm, warmth tugging and pulling me in and making me forget for a moment or two. I wash the shampoo from my hair and try not to think. Clothes over my head and a brush through my hair and breakfast and the bus pulls up at the corner, I get on and find a seat in between the jocks in the back and the freshmen in the front because people will talk. I don’t care if they talk, but their eyes make me itch. At school, I go to my classes and talk to people and smile because people will think I’m weird if I don’t, and at lunch I sit at the same table and watch with tired eyes. I don’t eat much, and I feel like I can’t, and no one ever notices.
The sadness is quiet and it builds up inside of me every minute that I pretend it’s not there, growing bigger and bigger and weighing more heavily on my mind. It’s like the deflation of accomplishment you feel once you realize you’ve done an entire assignment wrong and it’s due the next morning. A feeling of hopelessness washes over you and you know that you’ll never get it done, but you start erasing with tears in your eyes anyway. Or it’s when you look forward to something for ages until you realize that it will never happen, and your stomach drops and you have to pull yourself together because people are around and they’ll think you’re weird if you start to cry. You spend hours staring at the ceiling because they say that’ll make the tears stop, but they never do. It’s embarrassing. People look at you and you sink farther into yourself, farther into what is making you sink in the first place, and you feel very alone.
There is nothing romantic or noble about this sadness.
It eats at my heartstrings and pulls at the corners of my mouth, pulling me down and down and down.
No.
I wake up each morning and pull the covers away from my legs and stretch and groan to my parents about school. In the shower, I stare at the wall and I don’t think of death or dying or falling to a million pieces or shattering on the sidewalk because he's not here. My eyes are closed and the steam pools around me like waves of calm, warmth tugging and pulling me in and making me forget for a moment or two. I wash the shampoo from my hair and try not to think. Clothes over my head and a brush through my hair and breakfast and the bus pulls up at the corner, I get on and find a seat in between the jocks in the back and the freshmen in the front because people will talk. I don’t care if they talk, but their eyes make me itch. At school, I go to my classes and talk to people and smile because people will think I’m weird if I don’t, and at lunch I sit at the same table and watch with tired eyes. I don’t eat much, and I feel like I can’t, and no one ever notices.
The sadness is quiet and it builds up inside of me every minute that I pretend it’s not there, growing bigger and bigger and weighing more heavily on my mind. It’s like the deflation of accomplishment you feel once you realize you’ve done an entire assignment wrong and it’s due the next morning. A feeling of hopelessness washes over you and you know that you’ll never get it done, but you start erasing with tears in your eyes anyway. Or it’s when you look forward to something for ages until you realize that it will never happen, and your stomach drops and you have to pull yourself together because people are around and they’ll think you’re weird if you start to cry. You spend hours staring at the ceiling because they say that’ll make the tears stop, but they never do. It’s embarrassing. People look at you and you sink farther into yourself, farther into what is making you sink in the first place, and you feel very alone.
There is nothing romantic or noble about this sadness.
It eats at my heartstrings and pulls at the corners of my mouth, pulling me down and down and down.