I’ll never forget writing this poem. It was about 3:30 in the morning and I was sleeping over a friend’s house. I remember not being able to sleep due to the noises I heard from the other room. My friend was reaming his wife. The sex must have been either incredible or violent, because both of them were crying after they finished. I laughed in the beginning, then blasted the music on my iPod, and when that failed started writing poetry to put myself to sleep. If I’m not mistaken this was sometime in the late Spring of 2010, which wasn’t the most best time of life, though it should have been.
A couple of months earlier I ended a relationship with a girl who was in love because I wasn’t really that fond of her, both sexually and emotionally. I got depressed afterwards. First I sought to console my loneliness through religion and prayer, but after that failed to help ease the pains of being a somewhat bi-polar and sex-crazed individual I turned to writing. I have been writing in personal journals on and off since high school. I would also experiment with writing poetry every here and there, but wasn’t that fond of it. Poetry seemed cheesy and an escapist’s way of being open and honest. However, it wasn’t until 2009 that I began to write actual poetry.
Most of the early poems were written on my computer and unfortunately lost due to accidents like accidental deletions or computer damage. 2010 was the year I decided to document all the poems I wrote on paper and, if written on my iPhone or computer, emailed to my private account. Melancholy was one of the first of these poems to be written and saved for future consideration. At the time I did not expect to pursue a career in writing whatsoever, but it didn’t stop me from dong what I love.
Anyway, Melancholy is a short poem that talks about my negative outlook on life as a result of being a loner and single. The fact that my friend and his wife were going at it like monkeys next door most certainly helped me express my emotions. So, yes, this poem was being written while my friends were having sex, and I was literally 10 to 15 feet away from them. Not sure if that’s a significant fact, but I just felt like mentioning it. Sometimes knowing the context of things helps one to understand where the person is coming from.
By the way, I forgot to mention something. I was trying my best to capture that Gothic/depressive yet romantic style of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. In my opinion I failed, but I’ll leave that for you to decide.
Enjoy.
Melancholy
As I look into the abyss of life
I see nothing but internal strife
A life without a wife
Full of misery and despair
Without any care
But who am I to dare
To go beyond the bounds given
And enter a life full of sinning
Where there is no winning
As I fall from grace
And into disgrace
I stare at the abyss in front of my face
Laughing at me as if I were blind
As my feeble mind
Tries to cope with the lies that I try to find
There is no hope, only pain
In a world full of nothing to gain
As I lay here on my bed feeling mundane
I do not feel jolly
But more like an empty trolley
This is life without love, this is melancholy
Mensur Gjonbalaj
June 2010
