The Elephant Holding Me Back

So distracted by work,
School,
The elephant,
And when I’m luckiest
Sleep;
I’ve lost my most notable skill.
The ability to absolutely submerge my entire soul into every flower I smell,
Study every face I pass, and fall in love with every bit of humanity.
Because there is true beauty in a story
Told only through subtle, and trivial details.

A sunflower growing to the side of the road,
Lone and taller than I; and weighed down by her own petals heavily hung from her florets,
She seems even more worn than I.
I feel something between pity and jealousy for this flower.
She clearly needs a break and for a fair reason,
An entire life entranced to follow the sun and nothing else.
I think that I’d want a break as well, though I’d switch her spots in a second.
Living as an extension of the Earth,
Basking in the heat all day,
And under the beautiful stars at night.
She might not want to switch though,
The elephant gets annoying fast.

This is something that once made me a decent artist
An okay writer,
And most importantly a happier person.
But the elephant makes noticing those things,
The little happy things that are so easy to disregard,
So hard.
Going for a walk under the stars is no longer for the pleasure of feeling the cold night air on my skin,
Not anymore for the immediate tranquility given to me by the glittering cosmos.
A once wonderfully mindless pastime has turned into nothing but an escape;
An escape from the elephant.
I guess by now he deserves a name,
Is Onero too weird?
Latin for burden, or overload,
I feel it's fitting.

This elephant
Onero,
He visits me every night,
I lie down after an echo of a day on my fluffy, impossible-to-get-out-of mattress
And feel his body sink on top of mine.
He cuddles comfortably, crushing my lungs.
Throughout the day I can feel a shadow of the weight,
A phantom pressure left behind by my miserable friend.
Lately, it feels like he’s on a diet,
The load getting lighter by the night
And the flowers
And clouds
And smiles,
All more prominent.

The trees, huddling and shivering for warmth
Under a blanket of snow that wants to help warm them,
But can only worsen the bluster.
In a car
With the music blaring
And surrounded by those I care for most,
I realize that once again
I hold the power to magnify every serene element of my surroundings.