Day 2 NaPoWriMo - Melancholia

Today's prompt we were tasked to make our own poem similar to Robert Frost's “The Road Not Taken.” This is my story.

Melancholia

I had a sadness that spoke with its own voice.
It ate food, wore clothes, brushed its teeth beside me.
Sometimes it would lift my hand to feed me.
Sometimes it would talk for me. I was relieved
to have someone to do the hard things,
say the hard things. And then my sadness
started doing my job and talking to my friends.
It would take long walks and it would take me for a walk.
It would take me out to eat at restaurants and it would pay.
It would shop for groceries and take my medications and vitamins.
It slept in my bed and it was good.
If I woke from nightmares, my sadness held me.

One day it wanted to take us for a drive east along the river
that winds below the great basalt cliffs. I said yes, of course.
It was a warm 70 degrees, just a couple of clouds.
I sat in the passenger seat as it drove.
It rolled down the windows and with its pale hands,
gripped the maroon steering wheel. The wind blew my hair,
tangled it around my face and neck. The river glittered navy blue
and white like a mirror left out in the sun. Evergreens dotted the shore.
My sadness, wove between the double yellow line
and hugged the solid white so close to the shoulder.

We drove in silence as it began to turn through the tight curves
with sheer drop offs into the valley, a thousand feet below.
I saw the tire touch the gravel of the shoulder. I glanced at my sadness.
It had no face, just blank, and I knew why it had driven me here.
Before it swerved, I grabbed the wheel from it.
I turned a sharp left into a gravel parking lot of an art shop.
My sadness slammed on the brakes. I was breathing hard,
but it didn’t breathe, so calm, so sure, so unafraid.
I cried and cried, slammed the dashboard with my palms.
It sat there like a mannequin, no words to be said.
I touched its shoulder and its skin was like winter.
I touched my own skin and it was warm and dry.
I got out and walked to the driver’s side,
opened the door, “Get out. It’s my time to drive.”