The Leak

How do you handle two emotions? How do you handle sadness, when it is right, and happiness, when it is inappropriate and artificial? When I feel I should just turn up the music so as not to hear the sobs of others, because there's really nothing I can do. Greed is like a drug. It eases my pain and I can't get enough, but it separates me from others and their problems: knowing their problems: and in the end, knowing them. And no one wants to burden me, everyone says. But what one person carries leaks on to the shoulders of those who stand trying to hold them up. Poetry and music...things that kindle feelings into fire are things that seem so irrelevant, but it seems like they push us here. Where have I gone to grow up, and how do I get back? Where do I go to do things right? How can I enjoy being good and happy and satisfied if others aren't? I get no joy out of hearing problems, I do not feel self-satisfied fixing them. I am empty and worried that it will all happen again. I am broken thinking about my own scars. I am loathing myself for hating them. Because I love myself, a lesson that was taught me and is learned by so few, I sit on a mountain of emotions I have conquered, and look down upon the others still toiling. I am not without pity, because I want them all up with me. But reaching out doesn't work: I'm not strong enough, they slide back down: and I am at the risk of falling. So I have to choose: pity them every moment of every day or ignore their suffering and hope for the best? No one can answer these questions, and the one who can has a policy of letting us find out the hard way. Nothing is harder than dealing with someone else's pain: wincing at looks, catching glimpses: thinking they are OK, not being sure: walking on pins and needles and trying to turn their heads away from that which brings sorrow. I want the word 'OK' to mean everyone. But I am always there, and no one else is. I can't guarantee happiness, I'd kill to be able to: I can't deserve it or win it or even give it. It's a gift with one giver, and it expires easily. Life is learning to love it while it's here: save it, make it worth while. Because it takes a lot to make things worth it in this life.