The Sorrow Collector

By birth, I have inherited certain sorrows. I carry them with me.

By heritage, I bear the weight of some irretrievable loss—burdens I lay upon the shoulders of fate—and wander about peddling melancholy.

In this life of mine, from the very beginning, all happiness has been smothered beneath a gray, relentless ache; my life is ground down in the mill of some uninvited revulsion, and through this grinding, it flows away, formless and dissolving into nothing.

Listen, sir, I have carefully accumulated quite a few sorrows inherited at birth.
People save gold, accumulate wealth, hoard land and houses; but look at me—what strange joy I take in hoarding sorrow...

Sorrows of every hue and every shape lie stored within me. Some I keep bound around my neck, some lodged in my heart, some in my mind; and still others, buried deep, wander through every cell of my blood.

Come, sir, sit beside me! Tell me, what shall I offer you? ... Lemon tea steeped in the color of anguish? Or perhaps blue coffee, brewed in the faithful blend of despair?