When your friend is sad

When your friend is sad

Like a cloak with a mind of its own
Sadness doctors strangely upon you
It wraps itself around your neck to restrict your freedom
and trails along behind you to distort your steps

Your mind should feel like home
but on this day, there’s a hole in the ceiling
above your favorite place to sit and it rains
It drenches your happy thoughts and they fall apart like soaked paper

Smiles are a forgotten memory
The muscles of your face have atrophied
I’m used to you being happy and very animated
and so this sad person feels like a stranger

I remember my parents’ advice to never talk to strangers
and like the first time we met, I discard it
I walk up to this stranger and I say hi
I sit in your company until the weight of your sadness becomes a burden shared by two

I let the memory of your sadness skid into oblivion
I do not ask about it
I let the rain in your mind drench us both
Till the grey clouds slowly get tired of crying

I stay and I remain. Wordless.
Till the song of my aura lulls your sadness to deep sleep
I remain till your face remembers a smile
and we can both talk about your sadness
in past tense.