Taylor Navis
Freelance Designer & Compositor

Melancholy,

 

The first time I saw you, you startled me. You were resting in the pages of Jane Eyre, and I, being uncertain of your true depth, wanted to gloss over you, but I couldn’t. I was frozen. The truth is, I didn’t understand you. You were a shadow I couldn’t catch. I read you over and over in my mind, attempting to sew you into my being like Peter Pan. This was only three pages in and as I journeyed through the heroine’s story, I kept finding you. I traced my fingers over the smooth paper and lingered at your beginning, and that’s when I began to thaw.

 

You are defined by society as depression, a mood no one wants to taste, but when I met you, I embraced you. I had been searching. I would dive deep into the ocean of sadness. I waited, and let the water dampen my senses; my hair floated like feathers in a breeze. The silence wasn’t enough, so I sank. I sank further and further until I met you like a mermaid discovering hidden treasure.

 

I find you dazzling. You glitter like ice on blacktop, hinting at the beautiful danger, and you gleam like the hidden iridescence in a raven’s wings. If only I could fly with you. You are not the result of an overabundance of black bile, or an imbalance of the four humors. You are ancient, but not ignorant. You strive to be understood and once you achieve it, you are a phoenix, lighting the night sky with blue and silver flames.

 

I’m sorry if I frightened you, but I gasped because I found you to be balletic. You are the Black Swan, twirling in my mind with fierce passion. You are addicting; this isn’t a concern, though some may find you too intense and too dark. To write you down is a ballet. My pen pirouettes and swirls as it travels with leisure through each letter; it hovers at the end, the ink forming a blot and sinking deeper and deeper into the paper. I struggle to let go. I don’t want to break this connection.

 

Before I met you, my writing life was an endless search. There was never a synonym for sad or depressed as strong as you. Gloomy was only a muddy pretender, like smoke masquerading as fog; all you have to do is breathe and it disappears. Grim and somber were fighters, but they would pull punches. It was as if their hearts weren’t truly in it.

Melancholy, your l’s lull me into a blissful, wistful oblivion. You’re the right kind of despair, the kind that accepts itself, the kind that wins when it gives up because only when you’ve been tasted can someone gain the courage to stand. And that’s what you’ve given me: courage.

 

The burning confidence to name my feelings and plunge deeper into my soul. You’ve given me an understanding of myself no mediocre glumness could muster. You are a word with a purpose, and my love for you is everlasting.

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Forever yours,
Taylor