Inspiring Sadness Poem by Suchaita Tenneti

Sadness is uninspiring…a point of statis…a prolonged masturbation of the moment, a mockery of time…

Sadness is pointless…so infantile, weak, petty…about as productive as pondering into infinity ablank


Even the moon shows no pity…too preoccupied playing muse to inspired hearts…not a care for us lesser mortals trapped in unremarkable moments…

(The chest heaves, descends tableward, the chin prepares to touch wood.)

No melancholic violin notes to stir the elements to creation…just the deaf breathing, the moving air, the lingering void…

The longing to connect, thwarted by the hiss of rationality (the fingers pause) …the flickering pact between boredom and weakness shattered…

And just as the forehead inches forth, the image appears…the night, the clouds, the hollow streets leading to nowhere, everywhere, true at night as they were at day, pregnant with possibility…

Bathing in the neon beams…the silhouetted traveller, a pedestrian, an onlooker? Who says windows hinder exploration?

And we dreamt and hoped and blushed in that wretched corner of the table amidst glue, and files, and fruits, separated by one space, connected by another…our love exalted before a screen...we were audience and players...ahhhhh...the tranquil click of feelings...

Sadness engulfed and haunted, threatened with partition, warned with falling heartbeat, but we were timeless in the moment…

And the moon…well, we didn't know…we never looked…but it blessed us night, the moment…as the roads continued to lie and the lights to burn, and fade, only to burn again.

And as the ink flows, the moments are delivered from consciousness, blacked into history…

They become real, grow, heal, get etched, and envision more…

They have a time of their own…their perceived duration…the fingers relent, they must, or the moment will pass…and all will be forgotten…

Those nights created memories, now written, now shared, now others will love and not learn, and create them again only to lament, then laugh at their folly...

And the breath loses its monotony as it did when we hoped…the moving air is only an aide…sadness has served its cause…inspired memory…fostered creation...