Gasoline Rainbow – A Poem

Sadness is difficult.

It creeps up on me

so that by the time

I find it living within me,

it is a surprise

to find it there.

I glare at it,

trying to give it the look,

but it is impervious.

I yell at it,

throw things at it,

tell sadness that it is not wanted,

but still it stays.  

Soon, it fills my head,

beginning with a rain

that drips down

throughout my body,

until I am heavy

with sadness and unshed tears.

I look at myself in the mirror

and there is a wetness to my eyes.

Sadness talks to me in a sly voice

that shines like gasoline

when it has dripped into water,

so pretty but so lethal.

It whispers in my head

and it says things like

“You know that no one loves you” or

“It’s impossible to change the world, why do you try?” or

“It would be easier just to end it.”

This is not my first dance with sadness.

I look at it,

I take sadness in,

shining like a rainbow

but I know that the sheen is fake.

I know that if I dip my fingers

into the puddle that contains the rainbow

it will disappear

and leave only the smell of something

that burns my nostrils.

Instead,

I look for my own light

that hides beneath the sheen.

I can see it dancing behind the rain.

Reaching into the gasoline rainbow,

sadness looks overjoyed,

but that look changes

when it sees what I’ve grabbed hold of.

Pulled out of the wet sadness,

I hold my light,

a mere grain of sand in my palm.

However, it is not the size of the light

but the brightness it shines with.

I clutch that grain of light

and I know that,

with time,

it will be a sea of light

that will welcome me home.