Melancholy

Melancholy

Paula Robles Nettel

I can ignore, suppress,

periodically forget you.

I can bury you in the bottom,

somewhere inside of my chest

leave you in a dormant state. 

When you awake, claiming momentum

like a soundless multi-current river,

you rumble inside of myself. 

You press and bounce inside of me, 

My chest, pin ball machine

tiny invasive ball of feelings

you travel from my heart,

side by side,  all over my chest, 

up and down in my sternum, 

never resting, you then go down 

becoming an emotional hiatal hernia, 

and there you confuse me, 

for I don’t know

if it is my chest or my stomach that hurts, 

or is it in my head? 

For I suffer no physical or mental illness, 

for I function normally in the world,

I have no answers for what this could be,  

for no one has ever proved 

if the heart shelters feelings,

nor where or if the soul exists.

Stavanger,  January/March 2015