Sad For No Reason

What kind of evil bodily imperative would push a person into thick waves of sadness? Why is it a thing to have a feeling that can't help you? That kind of stinging sadness that makes you feel like a well inside. A reservoir of dull ache deep in your chest. Like you're keeping a bird in your ribcage and it keeps flying into your bones. Sometimes I feel it prickling around the edges of me like pins and needles.

At least when there's some obvious reason it can feel right. Almost a relief because you know you're supposed to feel that bird. You know something has made it so you deserve to keep that bird trapped for a while. But when I'm lying somewhere comfortable and doing something fun and somehow I remember the inevitability of death, for example, I don't understand. I have trapped this bird in my ribcage for no reason.

I don't know, I don't know, I guess there's worry inside me that I don't really understand and will never understand. Something in my blood and muscle that will just be there to pull on me sometimes. Fear of death and fear of the dark are logical fears. You can't will them away. You just learn to deal with them. That's what you have to do with some things. Accept your pain. Hold it gently and pat it down with your fingers until it becomes a sphere, and you know every part of it.

Pain, sadness, guilt, fear, worry. They're all birds trapped in my ribcage. If I take care of them they can fly away on excursions and whenever they come back I can sit with them and tell them stories and cry. And they sit still with me for a while. And it's okay.