Melancholy Poem by Bert Bell

on monday mornings a wretched
woman trudges out onto
her back porch under a cloud
of gloom and struggles
to hang her despair on the clothesline,
thinking no amount of sunshine
will brighten it; she's carried
it far, too long, and her soul is too dark
for the light to find its way in.

at the end of the day, she prays
to a god she doesn't
believe in, pleading that he will
take, not her suffering, but her very
life, though it never happens. the bleakness
just gets darker, even though, when
she's able to be honest with herself,
she knows that the source her misery
is her self.


Bert Bell 2016