I exist in this little state of sadness. And I don’t mind it. It’s not a cavernous one that calls back my wails. A plunging one whose boundaries I can’t see or even trust exist. It’s a crawl space, conformed to the curves of my body. It encompasses me within a gentle heat. The low grade fever of my infected thoughts. It’s a cozy sadness, a companion.

The lingering poison lies waiting to be sweat out. This is just the dregs of the elixir I drank. The one that made me see shapes that were not there, convulsed my body and toiled with my mind. This is the tailwind of a gusty gale that knocked me aside and left me to crawl my way back to my path. And I don’t mind it.

The sadness numbs my extremities enough that I don’t feel the cold. It dulls my sensibilities so that I don’t harbor the implied meanings of little words. It’s this little steward. The herald of my coming healing. It sits with me when the loveliness of what I want overwhelms me. It stands by me when the possibility of losing it swells like a whirlpool in my gut. It’s right behind me in these moments when I quietly acknowledge its presence. And I don’t mind it.

It brings me peace to be in the sadness. No longer in the high tide that threw me into the rocks. No longer in the dark night that blinded me. No longer in the tumult of the poison’s bosom. It’s even here, it’s still. It tells me “you’ll be sad for a little while”. It tells me “you’ll feel the pain just enough as the jagged pill passes”. It tells me “it’s better this way”. I sit in sadness and I rejoice it. That it isn’t heartbreak, that it isn’t agony, that it isn’t uncertainty. It’s only sadness. And there’s worse company to keep.