Perfection

There's a certain skill, a certain craft, to being sad.

Sadness is the rain drops falling on the street when you are sad. It is the leaves on trees and the houses. Sadness is the cloudy sky in London and the cloudless sky in Salamanca. Sadness is rereading that beginning of a story that meant that we are so, so far away. Sadness is the song you listen to after so many years, when you thought you were over it, when you might have deceived yourself into thinking you had forgotten it. Sadness is knowing that you love somebody. Sadness is growing up, and holding on, and letting go. You can learn how to be sad.

Sadness is the smell of roasted hazelnuts, that smile that you know so well in the face of a stranger. Sadness is not being able to sleep when you are tired. Sadness is a feeling to bask in. The most beautiful poems are sad.

Sadness is perfection. A drop of bitterness, all that is worth telling. Sadness is that part of me that you did not want to know about. Sadness is what I put into everything I do when I want to make it beautiful.

(The table in the hall next to the front door is the only thing that hasn't changed. You are already past it, you walk straight in, talking about your plans, and I am standing in the hallway, thinking about how beautiful your voice sounds. I look down at the basket with the keys, back then it looked like millions of keys, it still seems like there are too many. My key is still there. You look back at me from the living room, smiling. I smile back. Sadness is a finished story.)