Sorrow Is an Old Friend to Me

Sorrow Is An Old Friend To Me.

Sorrow is an old friend to me,

he hangs around my house

as if he belongs here.

He tugs at my smiles trying hard

to pull them down.

The muscles strain,

yet smiles hold most of the times

but just as often they don't.

Frowns appear on my lips

and on my forehead

and in my posture as well. 

I bend beneath his hugs of pain

in a dark corner of my mind.

He throws parties when love dies,

his grey streamers hung below my eyes

are the color of tears,

the balloons are all black

and very much deflated.

The stereo only plays angry words,

over and over again

and shadows dance

with fevered paces to

the litany of its sounds.

He has stood by me when love

slowly vanished from

the eyes of those I cherish.

Years of companionship lost

in a sea of tears and then sunk

in the liqud hollows of my eyes.

He had an all out banger

when my Mom died.

She was manic depressive

flattened to a bookmark in

her collection of good memories. 
He was extremely close to her too,

but then she was gone 60 years

and a flick of her life support switch.

I signed the disconnect order,

but he guided my hand.

He followed me home where

he threw a wake..but I wasn't .

He always seems to know

when I'm vulnerable that's usually when

he brings friends of his over

to stay for awhile

Loneliness....Despair....Bitterness

They stain the carpet of my soul

with their their heady concoctions.

They trash the orderly progression of my life.

Things get shattered like my

heart, tattered like my dreams

and battered like my soul

Then calm arrives, usually

unexpectedly for just awhile.

Doors slam, the unwanted disappear

and the sunlight creeps in

until all is well again.

Though I can still see sorrow

peeping in the gaps between

the curtains on my windows,

waiting for an opening,

faithful to the end,

sorrow is my oldest friend.