Photo by Cecile Hournau on Unsplash

    Aubade

Waking at five, I stare at the shimmering diaphanous curtains
as the window square lightens from black to white
and the sun upstages the dull stars.
A new morning beckons
from behind the ivory satins
to be unwrapped like a present.
But I feel too numb to melt into a scream,
to be happy.
My grey malady has rendered me immune
to the restorative effect of a mug of cappuccino,
to the warm patterns made by the sunlight on the wall,
the cheerful variety of it,
to the delectable music produced by the wind chime
that suffuses the gentle morning breeze,
to the clouds the sun gilds like hope
that swell as the belly of Ganesh,
to the feel of soft wet grass blades under one’s feet,
the dew that makes glitter
like a precious jewel in the garden,
to the great tidal wave of sweet fragrance of roses and jasmines
that rushes over me,
and to the wild warbles of birds that rise as balloons.
Like an indefatigable miner
who digs right into the earth’s womb for gemstones
I hunt happiness
in the quarry of these small things
only to end up tunneling into the night of apathy
that blacks out the world that is too bright for me.
So while the sleeping city begins to rouse,
I swelter under the arid climate of my sadness,
tense and nervous as an over-strung violin,
scouring the desert of past
to find and pry open the sarcophagus
under which the mummy of that unnamable trauma lies.