Elusive

Friday morning I woke up to some bunched up tissues on the nightstand, as if I'd been crying. I had no recollection.

I asked RJ if I may have overindulged the night before. He said I'd been a bit chatty.

That was the worst hangover in a long time. I don't usually get the classic symptoms. But on this day, my fact hurt. My brain was dragging. I longed for quiet.

By afternoon, some memory returned. I remember ranting about a business associate who had made assumptions based on my ethnic background when she had no idea how I'd grown up or who I was.

When I was ready for my evening routine at my desk at home, I found a handwritten note. I was taken aback for a second, but then I remember hastily sitting down to scribble it before the thought fleeted. I had laid it there to be found by future me.

It read:

I didn't feel right
Until I took a swizzle and then I realized:
That's where
all the tears hid.

I grabbed the missive and waved it at RJ. "Here's a clue to my mental state last night," I declared, and read it to him.

Didn't know I still had poetry in me.

Again this is why writers and musicians and otherwise creative types need to be under the influence one way or another to unleash the beast.

I want to say I didn't know I still had such profound sadness in me. But who am I kidding? It's always gonna be there. Just sometimes I forget.