The Thing I Call Sad

I smile at the laughter in the room
It invigorates me, stirs the happy inside me but
It also wakes the sad
Makes it climb out of bed and stretch its hands till it grabs my lips and pulls them down with it
Makes it take a shower in the tears of my lonesome
Don’t be sad, you’re too cute to frown my mother says

Smile for me why don’t you a man calls from the street

This only makes the sad make a blanket of my tongue

Making me unable to stand up for myself 

to yell that I don’t know how to smile yet

The sad makes a playground of my vocal chords swinging from chord to chord

Making me choke up with each word

The sad is using my heart as a punching bag

Till it hurts to even feel

So I block out the emotions because without them it hurts just a little less

without them, I can take bigger breaths

I live with the sad drawing the blinds closed that are me eyelids

Cloaking my insides with darkness until that’s all I know

The dark keeping me safe from the emotions that may try to hurt me

The sad dances in my stomach so I can’t eat and turns my hands to string so I can’t turn on the light

Sad changes my feet into cement blocks so I cannot run away from it

The laughter is still there trying to wake up the happy instead of the sad

It may one day do it