Sometimes sadness feels like an old friend. It opens the door for you and helps you walk through it, and holds your hand along the way. You recognise it for what it is, you know what it does to you, but it just feels so familiar, so easy to slip back into, that you can’t help but being drawn to it. It guides you home, tucks you in at night, and pulls the covers over your head until you can’t breathe. It becomes the night, the darkness surrounding you and pressing down on you from all sides. It hands you a glass of strong-smelling liquid, lights a cigarette for you, presses a gun into your palm. Sometimes sadness feels familiar. It’s like your favourite slow song, like the feeling of too much ice cream weighing down your stomach, like broken glass lodged in your throat. It lets you go just to pull you back in again. And it’s not what you wanted, it never was, but it’s what you know. You know how to move with it, how to walk and talk, how to paint a smile over the scowl. Sadness throws a blanket over your heart, smothering the fire until only ashes remain. But you know you can turn this one ember back into a roaring fire. You know that even though you can wear sadness like a second face for a while, it will never be you, never be everything that you are. It will never be strong enough to steal my love away.
