Colors of Melancholia

This piece offers an intimate and unflinching look at the depths of depression.

You spiral down the narrow winding abyss of never-ending stairs

Into madness, isolation and despair;

You’ll find nary a soul to share your deepest fears

And when you write it’s in inky black tears.

The world seems like a dysfunctional kaleidoscope

Your amygdala crushes the semblance of hope

That you would find the elixir that you seek

Why would you have the need for that? Pity is for the weak.

My dear, don’t you know there is no escape from the maze of melancholia?

Once you’re come undone, you realize you are your own tragedy

No nepenthes shall ever be your remedy.

The catharsis is you’re just as lonely as the moon

In a sky full of stars at its side:

They will never see the scars that you hide.

You were the dahlia

That withered away.

The stardust in your veins no longer shines

The white harp inside you no longer chimes.

Your story takes place in a graveyard of ashes

You keep on reliving the same mundane day;

You’ve already forgotten what bliss feels like

A racing heart is just a fond memory from when you were truly alive.

Now, your whole life is just a series of flashes.

Your mind whispers how lovely it would feel to be at one with the lake

Where the mad Ophelia found the peace she craved.

Deep down you know you will never be saved

Not by the seraphs from the heavens or the demons from hell

There is only you and your all consuming ache.

You wish you could cease to exist to end this dissonance

For there will be no one to mourn your existence;

They will lament for a person that wasn’t you

And the body that your mind destroyed

Who cares for the soul that lives in the void?

© 2024 Inaba Tarek