“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad”

-Victor Hugo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i flicker quietly above as she drowns in the dust below

 

as she sips him from her bottle.

 

what a beautiful view to breathe the tragedy from here

 

i was once bright,

 

as she once was too.

 

ive slowed to a bit of a dim.

 

but i feel as though the dimming of my bulb has made me closer to her.

 

for now, i am not a chandelier she cannot reach.

 

i am not the beauty and perfection she can only see if she attempts to keep her head above water.

 

i am dim.

 

i am a low whisper,

 

hushing the sounds of the wealthy desires that drowned her.

 

i love to watch as she rests below me.

 

almost as if i am no longer the burning sun above her,

 

but rather a cloud that will shower them with what she could never become.

 

 

 

i am but a bulb,

 

my only job is to light the way;

 

no matter what path that may be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

when she was born, they placed me above her slumber, trusting me to light her dreams each night.

 

 

she was so beautiful, as she kept her eyes closed.

 

her closed eyes created her own peaceful darkness,

 

a darkness that shielded her from the aged darkness that we all dance through.

 

 

i miss her silent snores, now replaced by the thunder of her pain.

 

i wish my light could reach her, but her shadow is just out of my grasp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

her name was Penelope, and it is the only song i have ever sung.

 

i guarded her as she slept soundly as a baby,

 

yet i felt my light surge through me when she began to take her first steps into the world.

 

seeing a young dream take its first steps is an uncomfortable experience.

 

you feel a sort of emptiness for them, and for all that is ahead of them, as you know their first steps will be on a road that wants nothing more than to destroy them.

 

a road that wants them to leave my warmth and light behind.

 

oh, how i miss that warmth.

 

i am so aged now that i can barely warm myself.

 

if i had arms and a voice, i would have held baby Penelope.

 

i would have told her to stay with me and to curl into my warmth.

 

i was the only soul looking out for her.

 

 

and a chandelier cannot have a soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this girl was not the Penelope i lit for many years.

 

 

she would return home, from the world,

 

black and scalded.

 

she would leave me off,

 

preferring to bask in the glow of the darkness that grew inside of her.

 

i never complained,

 

i still enjoyed her company.

 

she wrote often, of young boys who touched too hard but tried too softly.

 

she wrote of best friends who loved her the way a drought loves a fire.

 

she wrote questions,

 

asking some spirit above how to help her reach a place where she could find a person who made sense.

 

oh, how i wish i had a voice.

 

none of us make sense, Penelope, i would cry to her.

 

we are all just lost, blinded by the lights that are trying to guide us home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Penelope was the most beautiful girl that ever existed.

 

but as she got older, she began to live her life with a dangerous excitement.

 

 

it was not always.

 

she danced through her ups,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and she drowned through her downs.

 

 

its funny how one body can contain two souls.

 

but they were both the most beautiful souls i had ever seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

when Penelope fell from her ladder, she would lay underneath me for hours.

 

wondering why she could not be the girl she sometimes was.

 

 

 

it was as though she was trapped in an empty theme park,

 

where she was the lonely passenger on a rollercoaster that, no matter how many times she tried to vomit up the pain,

 

they would not let her off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

her days became games to me.

 

 

some days, she would turn me on, and she would glow under my light.

 

 

she would write and breathe fairy tales and she would sing her own soul

 

yet,

although her soul was shining, it was not right.

 

 

she would bolt from idea to idea,

 

her spirit sprinting through her mind, telling her that she could do anything.

 

she would make lists,

 

and lists,

 

and lists,

 

and lists,

 

and lists,

 

of nothing.

 

these lists were the stones that held her together,

 

however they were written on paper,

 

and her soul was simply too heavy to lift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some days, she would cry surrounded by her crumpled lists.

 

she would cry at the weight of the joy she felt before.

 

why could she not reach those feelings?

 

why was it that, no matter how hard she tried,

 

that fullness that she sometimes felt,

 

 

left her feeling an emptiness so strong that it nearly drowned her in her ideas of who she was.

 

 

her memory of her happiness;

 

her memory of her energy and the light she had,

 

drained her.

 

it is in my belief,

 

that sorrow is nothing more than the haunting memories of the smiles you’ve left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i have never understood love.

 

i believe that one cannot love a body.

 

you cannot love the scars, and the wrinkles that grow with a soul’s sadness.

 

no,

 

i believe that we are only able to love ideas.

 

we love the ideas of the smiles, and the laughter.

 

 

some of us love the ideas of the pain and the screams.

 

 

love is a funny thing.

 

 

it is the darkest light any soul encounters.

 

 

we must all be careful to not let it consume us.

 

i, however, am only a chandelier.

 

my love falls to the beauty below me that i must protect.

 

 

 

if only Penelope could reach me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i remember when she first met him.

 

 

his name was oliver.

 

when he first entered the room he smelled of darkness.

 

 

that smell drowned me out, and to this day i can barely breathe

 

 

his eyes were hollow, and they seemed to steal the last of my light from hers.

 

 

they spent evenings together,

 

roaming through each others thoughts and fingers,

 

uselessly expressing their love with deeply vacant promises.

 

 

it all disgusted me, but who am i to judge?

 

maybe i am the one who does not understand love.

 

 

 

maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i remember the evening he left her.

 

he left her, and let her shatter like one of the bulbs that glowed above her.

 

 

 

i could not reach a light down to hold her, i wanted her to know the world still held light.

 

 

it was then that she truly became two.

 

 

her episodes got more and more scattered.

 

 

you did not know if she was going to be the sun or the moon that day.

 

 

you did not know.

 

 

i should have known that her end was nearing.

 

often, an artist is only known after their death.

 

 

and the painting of a life that she had

 

created, was soon to take center stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as she lay below me, a faint shadow painted by my faded light,

 

she took the last sip of herself.

 

 

i loved her dearly, and seeing her go clothed me in pain that will never heal.

 

 

i loved her so much,

 

that to see that beautiful sunlit baby girl, storm into two, different natural disasters,

 

hurt me more than seeing her eyes close for the final time.

 

she turned the light off for herself,

 

 

but i believe i will continue to shine for her.

 

i will shine until they find her,

 

and then i too,

 

will burn out.