Melancholy Poem by Thabani Khumalo

Melancholy.
Melancholy yes I indeed
and yes I do invoke you by your ugly name.
Melancholy you have no shame.

I am now coming to know how precisely -
How I will distance myself from all that you subject.
I will surrender all the misery that you bring
and towards every fit of daring joy I will remember to haste.

I keep on growing to hate you with the utter drive of my honest faith -
That very big part of me that you snatched and mucked,
I still remember the weight of every teardrop and the pain in every thought
when you were there to hurt the grace of love in all my true and silent wish.

I love myself too much to forget about any second of my past.
Indeed born a saint but look what you have made me become,
a silly wizard that's bent on spells that induced the possession of a demon.
So the demon that I know I serve is still you Melancholy.

I am beginning to know how to surrender all your avatars back to you -
learn to carry your own burdens and travel without me,
and your avatar is every human person that causes me to be sad.
I truly wish they remain at a sanitary distance until they die.

I am your host of many years upon this land.
Melancholy I am Thabani Khumalo.