Melancholia

I sleep but do not dream.
I eat but taste nothing.
I walk without destination.
Time passes. And passes—
tomorrow into yesterday,
a procession of days without number.
Colors fade into black and white.
Feelings fade, then vanish.
Words are few, thoughts fewer.
Dangers stalk where none did before.
Squalid and fierce sadness overcomes me
like a poisonous cloud,
suffocating, overpowering.
I cannot breath the abundant air.
I cannot see the unrelenting sunlight.
Life! Life! I cannot feel you!
Instead there is not feeling,
not forgetting,
then a fading to black.


—Eric Nelson