PROSE POETRY
What Do You Do When Even the Sun Hates You?
A poem about depression
It was the first lunar cycle when my old man shook his knobbly hands with the devil to save his own pathetic, miserable soul by offering my effervescent one instead.
So there is much darkness inside of me that even the exuberant sun is afraid of.
Butterflies in the wild are not pretty things; they are the harbinger of doom and death. With red, fiery streaks from flaps of their wings, they desiccate my papery skin and weak flesh.
How could anyone ever learn to love me when I make love to death every night?
I walk the night alongside nefarious creatures whose soulless hearts weep at the sight of my brokenness that disturbed them.
I am disowned even by the moon and the stars, and the world is black where no light ever shone, save for the glowing eyes of death by my side.
Wolves point their noses to the moonless sky before the pack surrounds me in an uneven circle, as they tear at my toxic flesh, feed on my bones, before cowering at the impossible darkness that lives in the chambers on the left side of my chest. Tails between their legs, they flee at the stench of death.
I belong to neither the sunny day nor the dark night. Hated by both and leaving a trail of petrified souls, I stay in my cave away from curious, hateful eyes.
As a loveless creature bound to wither away and die alone, cursed by elements of nature that are meant to soothe a broken heart, I am crumbled by the jealous death himself.
I am nothing but a blipping anomaly in the universe.
I should not have existed, and yet now I will not die, even as the devil leaves me, and death clings to me selfishly, still unwilling to end our sordid, illicit affair just yet, although my body is no longer mine, and my soul is long gone.
What do you do when even the sun hates you and the moon shuns you?
Do you hide behind the clouds, give up and fade away, or do you fight with all your might, creating your own light that puts the sun and the moon to shame?
Suddenly, the answer is clear as day.
My only regret is that I had chosen to wallow in darkness when I should have emitted a glow so bright, so dazzling that even rainbows would surrender their pots of gold for a glimpse. I need no other light but my own from now on.
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