How To Write A (Sad) Poem

I write many, many poems.
Some are happy—
The sparkle of the sun
On the sea
Or the shimmer of sunset
On the ocean.
And then there are some poems
That are angry—
Red and furious and hot
Fire that burns
As if heart and soul
Have turned to sparks
And started a wildfire.
And then there are poems,
The poems that I write
At two a.m.,
The poems that I write
When I am at my lowest, most lost moment,
The poems whose pages
Are transparent because of my tears
And those whose pages
Are made to match my soul—
Those are the poems I write
For my demons and for my sadness.
And they are not easy to write—
No. They are a process.
To write a sad poem,
One must break one's heart
To a million pieces;
One must pick out a single shard
And place it in a glass case.
One must taste the words upon one's tongue
And feel them turn to tears and rain—
And one must tear the paper in half
Until it becomes whole again.