And now, how they all do laugh:
Green-eyed ones who envied me,
When we three played together –
Now, how they revel in glee!
I was secure to not change
Aspects of identity –
That now seem so very strange,
Since I’ve lost serenity.
I wander lost, through each day,
And family worries, too;
But I just can’t put away
The old rules that seem so true.
So, spectators watching laugh.
In a baffled mind, comes shame.
They’ll warn on some cenotaph:
Dreamers like him fail the game.
I can’t recall when I laughed last,
When I was happy and free,
When I felt nothing haunting me
And I forgot hurts from the past.
Pleasant times move so very fast;
And I‘m left with clipped memory
Of pain that won’t let me be
Nor help recall when I laughed last.
There are words that can cut like knives;
I have no use for the likes of such;
And when friends brandish them for woe,
That does seem to account for much.
They spin through the air and draw blood,
Much like some martial arts movie;
And they are sent with desires to wound
To decimate my self completely.
I see the glee in the eyes as they take aim;
The thoughtful precision of a taunt,
The cocking of the brow and curling lip
That releases the word designed to haunt.
I have never known the pleasure of this;
Perhaps it goes against my grain,
The way I was taught and reared and loved
Not to strike back in kind; but refrain.
In laughter, much is said that wouldn’t be,
In laughter, wounds are made as well as healed,
In laughter, words are made and broken,
In laughter, much malice is artfully concealed.
It depends on how we choose to use it;
May a smile, that softly reaches the eyes,
Overtake a barbed word, that spins forth,
Before a patchwork of marked lies.
May soft eyes, genuinely, care to safeguard
Tender feelings and genuine pleasure;
May everyone be happy and sane
And let what is leisure remain leisure.
Hearts Still Care 
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