When the menalcholy fit shall fall...

Today, I miss someone.
I have that feeling when you miss someone so much that your heart aches simply because of their absence. Like a small piece of yourself is gone because they aren't with you. It's a lonely place. Sometimes even when I'm surrounded by other people it's lonely. The subject of my loss cannot be replaced or substituted with other people. No one compares. I feel numb and listless and I don't know what to do with myself.

This is too melancholy, I think. Too sad. I feel like my heart's lying open for all to see. That's a bit of a scary thought. But sometimes the posts I hesitate to publish are the best. The scary, worried-what-everyone-will-think posts. They're also the ones I'm most proud of, most attached to and usually the most challenged by.

I think this will be rather short today because instead of my head being full to the brim, it's rather devoid of anything interesting or important. Not completely empty, just inexplicable.

Speaking of melancholy, I leave you with:

Ode on Melancholy

by John Keats

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

(Make of this what you will. I don't quite get all of it myself.)

Note to Lydie: I don't know if this post matters so much, since you don't know me in the 'real' world. The fear I speak of is maybe not so bad here as with my regular readers, some of whom I do know in the real world. You know how you know people in life, and you think you know *who* they are? Well, really you don't. My posting this for people that I know, peels away layers of who I am that some of them don't know. That's the scariest thing. Being brave enough to show my real self. I've been challenged about that lately. Including the fact that I write with the pseudonom FR, or as I sometimes think, my 'other self';) Really, that bothers me sometimes. But that is a whole post on its own. I'll elaborate on the subject at a later date. Till next time...