by Kara Dunford
*Content warning: mental health/depression*
Will you forgive me this interlude?
For I don’t know anything about
the kinds of rhapsodies played here,
even so feeling every feeling,
inclusive of the ones I don’t have names for yet.
I linger in the lonely corners,
collecting evidence of my humanity:
diminished silhouettes and exquisite shadows
humming a familiar melody of yearning.
“Look how beautiful the world is even
as everything is falling apart.”
I join in, as if I’ve
rehearsed it my whole life.
Wistful, no matter which way you look at it.
I sit with it—the longing in my chest.
It’s the way it rises within,
its crescendo soon all I hear.
Ritardando. Diminuendo.
Therapy. Treatment.
I didn’t know what syncopation could feel like
until I stepped outside of myself,
the way I never knew what harmony could look like
until I found it inside of myself.
About the author:
Kara Dunford (she/her) is a writer and nonprofit communications professional living in Washington, DC. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Brave Voices Magazine, Fahmidan Journal, and boats against the current. She serves as a Poetry Editor for Overtly Lit. Find her on Twitter @kara_dunford.
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