My Sweet Melancholy

My Sweet Melancholy, 

You are rare.

You are the type of girl that can't be replaced. 

The one that will always be an inconvenience to the masses.

You are cheerful and warm by day,

but after every meeting, headline, and black body that dies for existing,

you turn somber.

You have the ability to be brilliant off of 2% battery life.

Sweet Melancholy,

You constantly grieve because the boys that you romantically like will never come,

because you often desire the ones that will hurt you the most.

In this world, we are taught that love will cost you, rather than be free.

But right now, when everything is so isolated, womanhood being negotiated, and people are dying faster than leaves falling from a tree in early autumn, people holding you sounds nice.

Sweet Melancholy,

Everything that you are feeling is real.

You are crushing on a black boy while grieving the loss of Ahmoud Arbery.

You are angry at the world, yet angry at yourself.

You feel like you have been trying to catch up to everyone because being the immigrant working-class kid often means finding meaning only in work, only for everything to be put at a standstill.

Sweet Melancholy,

I want you to know, you have the right to be still.

Sit on the ground,

cross your legs,

close your eyes,

and breath.

Sometimes the loudest acts of resilience,

are the ones that are the most silent.