when you are sad
​     by Elijah Patterson

when you are sad
every sad song
seems as if it were written
for you by a person
who doesn’t quite know your ache,
your particular hunger denied;
every poem a reading
of the valleys of your face
and the lines on your hands
by a lover who
pried themselves seven years ago
from the softest parts of your soul
with the wrong mix of words and silence