10.

Melancholy suits me. We cannot leave that which breaks our hearts. Will I ever stop wearing melancholy? Will it ever stop suiting me? Just like I feel that a part of my trunk is missing, there is a new part of me as well. It's filled with sadness, fear, trauma - and it's melancholic. Except my melancholy knows it's cause and origin. Sadness of spirit. My entire spirit has been affected. This new part holds memories that are hard to look at. Memories that keep me awake late into the night, despite my exhaustion. Memories that I not only see but feel in my body. They sit at the edge of my mind, popping in whenever they feel like it. How do I move through the world with one part of me gone and this new part here? It's like learning to walk with three legs - how does it even work? Will I eventually get used to it? The new normal of a hole in my body and an entire new appendage. I would like to close my eyes to all of it, but closing my eyes doesn't do any good. Like I said, all these memories are in my body, too. I feel them when I'm reminded. All of the flashes of caring for a loved one that is dying in slow motion right in front of your eyes. How do I turn my brain off? I try to think of other times but sometimes these memories are so loud my attention can go nowhere else. What am I supposed to do? I keep thinking about your last breath. All that led up to it. It still feels so unreal. This new appendage is filled with moments like this. Sometimes I want to forget them, but other times I hold on with a grip so fierce. Any memory of you is a gift to me because it's a time when you were here. When I could touch you, hold your hand, feel the weight of your human-ness. But then they also remind me that you're no longer here. It brings about such melancholy. Is this my new skin? My new body and skin that just fit so well with this sadness of spirit? I don't know anymore. I wish I could talk to you about all of this. You would know exactly what to say. Perhaps that is the one thing my melancholy needs in order to subside - your comforting words of support and understanding. But I know I will never get those again because you are no longer here. Perhaps melancholy will be around for awhile, then.