Sad Poetry

I think you can see straight through me
when I start writing sad poetry.
It manifests and consumes
and my heart becomes an open book.
You can flip through the pages,
see all the tragedy
scoff at the melodrama
and groan and the melancholy metaphors.
And then you can toss that book aside
on your bed side table
and sleep with sweet dreams.
But that sad poetry
and that inspiration for those words
boils within me
and leaves tiny gashes in my skin.
Because for me that poetry is not simply
a list of pretty words.
It's a fabricated figure
of my hopeless heart
of my shattered confidence
of my lonely existence.
And I feel ridiculous
because I'm not usually one to complain
when all around me are gifts of
laughter, friendship, joy, beauty.
I see it and regret the instant that I spent precious time
writing a sad poem and let the dark overtake me.
Stupid sad poetry,
I write you too much.