poem

Funny, Not Funny

Sometimes it's hard to laugh

Cheeks heavy with Quikrete

Too much of a lift

I‘ve read all the psychologists

There are only four valid reasons for anxiety:

One, not knowing what is about to happen.

Two, fear that performance won't match expectation.

Three, that you’ll be seen as you really are:

A fool, incompetent, boring, a dork.

And four, realizing that the only certainty is your own uncertainty

About anything, anyone, ever again

At least you won’t be able to doubt that 

You're done with funny

It’s not even worth mourning

You’ve entered your spaced out

Lunar eclipsed nihilist goth phase 

The sunflowers in the trash

Look like sleeping witches

I should spend more time in the garage

So much of my life

I simply am not awake

In the unlikely event I actually rouse

Myself from deep slumber 

It never lasts

Sandcastles at high tide

This cube of sugar in my extremely hot tea

Am I breaking any new ground

Here or am I just, finally, seeing

What everyone else

Has been seeing all along?

On the way out of the grocery

With a haul of freshly pressed shirts

Slung over my shoulder like I’m Ward Cleaver 

I notice a young man buying flowers

With an anxious grin on his damned face.

(The goof, as if she wouldn’t like them)

So, sure enough, there I am, stuck 

In the floral line with a bouquet of garish bellflowers

Hours away from turning into baby 

Gargoyles who will require frequent naps 

As I’m leaving I pass an old guy

With a face like hydrangeas

He looks at me, sees my flowers

And bellows out “what did you do?”

And the corners of my mouth rise

Ever so slightly, but lightly,

For the first time all night 

And I say: “this time I killed her”

With a nicely timed wink 

And I smile and, after a beat, he laughs his way

Into the realm of the perpetually unjudged 

And I keep walking, laughing, walking, laughing 

And pretty soon I’m the only one in the whole world still laughing.

From this perspective

Everyone looks so sad. 

8/15/23