This is a piece I started working on for this novel Breaking Eve I have been working on. It depicts my melancholy nature. It is not quite complete but almost. So for your reading pleasure LOL here it is.

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Black Bile

I never questioned in the past the way I look at things, what comforts me or this constant sorrow that pervades through the smiles.

I always thought people were like this in general and that overly happy people made you nervous. Having said this, I questioned recently my melancholy soul and it's possibility of a chemical imbalance or depressed state. i was asked once by someone if I ever got happy; you know truly happy. I thought I did and after careful analogy and consideration it dawned on me that No! I never fully experience happiness in a way so many chase after and those who seek and find turn a blind eye to the sorrows of this world.

I'm not saying there are not times that I don't feel happy: I do but within the capsule of my joy remains a corner of my being that feels melancholia. There is always this elemental sadness just below the surface; always tugging at my heart's strings as thoughts, memories, and living in the now convey this euphoric saddened state.

There is something oddly comforting walking down a beaten path amidst withered trees, the plaintive cry of a gull in the distance or of the sombre embrace of longing and loss as I listen to the soulful cry of the singer yearning for salvation.

For so long I thought it perhaps morbid finding peace and a curl of the lip as I smiled all the while my heart was breaking. Through some of the darkest and most lonely of times I have sought and found beauty and a rekindling of inner contentment as I crawled about within through the crevasses and the emptiness that accompanied me on those sleepless nights.

I have found a niche to call my own walking along city streets as the moon cradles this corner of the earth and I make my way shadow to shadow feeling a sense of euphoric sorrow staring at neon signs and vacant lots. Fall time finds me at my most pensive stature. The graying of foretelling winter ahead, trees baring their nudity for the world to see. The cool touch of November rain against the skin and sunlight retreats early giving way to the wondrous and elegant virtue of darkness.

There is something soothing about this time of year. While so many look forward to an early Spring and Summer, I rest quietly within the fold of this season's seeming terminal decay. I often long for those short winter days that give way to early nightfall and the darkness that befriend's the aching joy that courses along my being deep into the secret of my soul giving way to a deeper understanding of all that breathes life and takes life around me.

Overtly happy people make me nervous. Brimming over with a surreal and often unnerving happiness, I've refused long ago to give into temptation of the "happy pill" or "overzealous seminars of the claustrophobic" so afraid of all things sorrowful. To experience sorrow amidst your joy and not be afraid of letting go, you begin to fully understand what this life is all about; this living, this existence that is not of pure and genious sensation but rather of highs and lows and existence that is alive in between. This melancholy that so many are afraid of or that so many throughout the ages have considered to be "madness" of the soul is but experience of innocence and gratitude for truth.

To forfeit my right to a life silenced neglectful to the sorrows of the world around me and within would be without just cause giving in to an arrogant and seeming happiness. Without calamity forging the road ahead I am side blinded by the truth that permeates around me.

In flight, the solitary bald eagle soars upon a chilly mid-summer morning breeze, the sun his lonely companion. A clump of soil lies solemnly by the roadside as I travel down Highway 59. Miles of yellowed and beaten wheat pass me by; the ghost of farm machinery lingers still. abandoned, the barn kitten cries for his mother who is to never return to nurture and protect her young. The unquiet calmness before the storm as clouds rush in and from above, the crack of thunder and dizzy pace of lightning opens the skies and tear shaped drops of splendor wash away movement.

As I drive along city streets I pause at an intersection. Four wooden crosses, flowers, and a poster with taped photographs offers my soul a momentary glimpse into my own mortality and how fragile life can be. Here I put the car in park and simply stare at this memorial site wondering what happened to these four beloved ghosts burning heartache into a stranger's life.

For a moment I sit by this roadside staring at this memorial site of loss; this site of life that embodies memory. Within I am comforted by these kept alive by the fresh cut flowers and posters as I ache; ache not ever knowing those who passed, ache for the loss, for the life preserved.

With this image in my head and this mournful air about me I drive away, the music silenced and only the sound of gravel beneath the wheels accompanies me along the rest of my journey back from the hustled and hurried scattering of city limits and into the void of freedom.

This longing amid the beauty I see around me. At times a yearning for normalcy; other times for solitude. To smile as the heart breaks open and through the body the rush of nervous bouts of euphoria trickle with tepid despair. Through the fold, the destitute plea of a violin plays in the background, numbing my senses as I reflect upon life, loss, and the beautiful guise of grieving and joyful moments that encapsulate time through slippery fingers.

This is here; this is now. And here I am, the melancholy soul always reaching, always grasping elogance shadow to shadow, always reaching, seeking about within, and seeping through the cracks, searching for constant ground yet slipping along always without grasp.