how it seeps into our lives
like acid rain in the gutter of our world
and though we scrub our skin
and mop the stained pavement,
it returns, dark and thick, unblockable.

how it creeps into our lives
with chirps and whistles, childlike,
hidden between the pages of our books,
behind the minor notes of major music,
its words and melodies compiled
into a cacophonous calamity of sadness.

how it breathes its life into our lives,
slithering snakelike into the brightest moments,
reminding us of who we could be,
of what within us we have lost,
of who we are in this moment, this
undefinable, sorrowful,
searching-for-meaning moment of suffering.