contentment is elusive, grasped for brief moments of bliss

"Obtuse" is not a characteristic by which it is pleasant to be described. Unfortunately, the term can frequently be found listed in reference to my name. And so:

A letter from my sister

brings some redemption to a lost day.

The knowledge that the heart

is capable of loving so many,

breaking so often, yet healing again

Is of no comfort to me.

Soft night slips quietly

curtaining the evils of daylight

And the stealers of souls go to bed

beneath blankets of oblivion.

Or, as my beloved Miss Emily Dickinson puts it:

"Pain has an element of blank;

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there were

A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain."