Together Again

I don’t expect you

To understand

Why not to be sad

It’s a strange thing

Feeling like

You should be sad

And then

Going against the feeling

I’m not talking

About denial

I don’t believe in

Denying anything

Least of all

Sadness

But you say--

I’m sad

And then you think

Of all the reasons

You have

Not to be sad

And you’ll find

That while you can be sad

You can be a lot of other things

As well

I think about

Memory

About how light it is

And how heavy

Sadness is

And how one can

Bring down the other

If you’re not careful

I like to look

In shop windows

When I’m feeling sad

They don’t do them up

The way they used to

But if you know where to look

You can still find

Some nice displays

I look in shop windows

And I pick out

The one thing I would buy

If I could

Not that I can’t

But you can’t go buying

Something

Every time you feel sad

Or you’ll be buying things

Non-stop

All the time

So I just look

I look and I pick

One thing out

And then I walk home

Thinking about it

Thinking about holding the bag

The weight of it

The bag

Not the sadness

And how it’s going to look

When I get it home

Whatever it is

I used to do that

With your grandmother

Go shopping

Spend the day

Laugh at silly things

That’s what I think about

When I think

That I’d rather be sad

I run through everything else

I can be

And I understand

That in the whole weight

Of the world

There are more places

And times

That I’ve had her with me

Than without

And by the time
I get back around

To sadness

I just don’t have

The energy for it

And if I’m being honest

The entire time
I was probably sad anyway

But the point is on the focus

It’s about

What I’m focusing on

And so the sadness is there

But so is something else

You can think about

What you can’t have

In the window

What you can’t afford

What won’t look right on you

What you don’t need

Or you can let

Magical thinking take over

And live there

In that moment

For as long as you like

It’s not reality

But whoever found themselves

Doing any bit of good

By embracing reality?

I’d rather stand

In front of windows

And think about

What’s possible

What I could do

If I really
Wanted to