We kept it in the basement.

We kept it in the basement because we didn’t know if the others would see the value in putting it on display.  Would they run away? Would they try to slay? We embrace our melancholy, we feel the beauty within, we even dandle it.  For we felt the coup de foudre when we met it, but they didn’t understand. They treat it like the bile spewed from a long drawn out battle with the flu.  They only see its unpleasantness, and refuse to acknowledge how it’s there in the first place to help the system run efficiently. They don’t like seeing when something affects this delicate balance and the symptoms come out.  And then they blame the symptoms! So we kept it in the basement to protect these people from their own insecurities. We kept it in the basement to keep the peace. We thought we would be happy visiting it in our basement where they couldn’t see and judge and raise their pitchforks at the perceived danger.  But after time, we discovered how we were wrong. We saw how what we once enjoyed became a shameful act for us. We saw how we stopped wanting to go into the basement for our time with it. We saw how we stopped enjoying it and started treating it with the same contempt as the others.

And so we stopped.