They cloak themselves in intentional
Invisibility and mirth;
It seems like not to go along is just
Being a bad sport.
In the world of funny things there are two kinds:
Amusing and abusing – remember that.
Both cause raucous laughter, but in one
Somewhere in the room there is a silence
In the laughter spread
There's a little spot somewhere
Of dead.

It's that flaw in human nature
That lets us secretly enjoy other people's
Problems; outwardly we empathize but
Inwardly we are jumping up and down
High-fiving ourselves, thumping ourselves
On our backs for always knowing that they
Were never as perfect as we always thought
They were.

It goes too far though. Not everyone
Rebounds, and some shrink in and in
And in and in, until they are lost in
The room of all people. They sort of
Go offline. Instead of looking for new
They are sorting through the old,
Living days over and over and over,
Hiding in the known.

The bully me and the bully you
Should watch what we say and do.
Not every one believes that each day
The world begins anew.

08/01/2005

Posted on 05/20/2013
Copyright © 2024 W. Mahlon Purdin