A Bitterness-Mary Oliver

[mercifulserpent]

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness
and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger
and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never
play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your
bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of
the hillsides.

-Mary Oliver