Sorrow's Kitchen

Happiness left me and took Reason too.

For a while it was just Loneliness and I.

Then there was a hard knock at the door.

Sorrow invited me over.

She said, “I heard what happened and I want you to know I’ll always be here for you.”

I’ve been in Sorrow’s kitchen for a long, long time.

Sat at her table with Misery trying to figure out why Reason had to leave me too.

Played spades with Agony, Pain, and Hopeless.

Drank cool water with Sadness.

Cried heavy tears with Anger.

I’ve spent plenty a times in Sorrow’s kitchen.

She has never left me.

Not like Happiness and Reason at least.

Sure she’ll run out for coffee or sugar.

But she always returns. Always.

One day, I was frustrated. I looked Sorrow straight in the eyes and asked, “Why did you come to my house that day? Why did you invite me over?”

Her annoyed reply: “Why do you stay? I don’t force anyone to stay here. I invited you over and you said ‘Yes.’ You sit at my kitchen table with Pain, Misery, and Agony. You ask when Hopeless is on his way. You wonder if Sadness and Anger will make it here today.”

But to explain to Sorrow just how hard it is to leave her and her kitchen is difficult.

She has a way of taking over everything. 

Of surrounding me; wrapping me. 

The very thought of leaving makes me anxious and afraid.

If I leave Sorrow’s kitchen then where will I go? What will be left? Who will be with me then?

“Death’s been asking ‘bout you. Wondering when you might visit her. But I said that the reason you probably don’t visit is because her kitchen isn’t big enough to hold all of us. She only got enough room for two. It would just have to be you and her. And I don’t think you’d want that. Would you?”

“No,” I said and sipped more coffee in Sorrow’s kitchen.

by Marlena Elmore (c) 2012

Inspired by Zora Neale Hurston's quote, “I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.”