these days a lot of
people call
themselves
empaths

They claim to be able
to feel what
other people
are feeling
and suffer with them

"I cheated on my boyfriend
with his brother," some
girl said,
“and being the empath
that I am
I started crying along
with him when he
found out. It's hard
being such
an empath."

And there was
the guy
who got into a bar
brawl and
knocked another guy's
teeth out
and held a hand to his
own mouth and made
pain noises

I guess he
was an empath too

If you have a
social media account
and don't describe yourself
as an empath
people will think you're some
kind of monster,
a psychopath, they'll compare
you with ******

Yeah, it's a good
reason not
to use social media

If you actually
needed another

at least the clouds are
smiling back

they have faces and
souls
and they stare back from their
blue canvas,
down on his *****, snot-smeared face

It’s a warm
sunny day
but the
bottom of the shallow, dry well
is cold and full
of critters

Well, no problem. The sky is so
pretty with all its smiling
faces that he
won’t even cry. He’ll stay there
and look up. Still waiting
for mother to return and
pick him up

Still waiting

Smiling back at the clouds

Still waiting

he takes his old wrinkled
notebook
and the black pen

and finds a
spot from which he can observe
the people
and write down what he
imagines to be their inner
conversations

It passes the time

and it takes away
attention from his own
inner conversations

It’s like a prescription drug
he has to take for the
rest of his life
and the twenty-nine bookshelves
filled with notebooks
he has at home stand as proof of that

But this will be
the last one,
he promises himself
as he closes the notebook and
walks up to the bridge

They say
that love
is a fool’s errand...

I guess
I just enjoy
running errands.

the cat was utterly
uninterested
and downright
bored

with him reading
mediocre poems
by her side

"You don't like this one?" he asked
"It's about nature
and birds
flying and... and... How good does
it have to be for you
to like it? I'm only ten, I haven't
lived long enough to
write poems of grief
and depravity like my father. But you
know, I'm actually aiming to become
better than him. I aim to be
a more
respected poet. What, you don't think
I'll be able to?
You think I'm just another
deluded fool? I'll show you!"

The cat stood
and stretched raising her tail
"Calm down, kid. First of all,
your daddy was no
poet. Just some drunk who spoke of
demons as he passed out
in bars. And you, you're not ten, okay?
You're just ten days
clean of meds."

"You think I should
end myself?" he asked

The cat waved a paw
at that. "Nah, just go on with the
next poem. I'll be listening
but please don't expect any
praise. It's not in my nature to
offer it, okay?"

"But... you think I'll be a great
poet one day?"

The cat closed her
eyes and offered no reply

again
she grabs a stool
and places it into the corner
of the room,
climbs on it, assumes the lotus position
and closes her eyes
and covers her ears with headphones

She faces the corner

The voice that speaks into her
headphones starts a
countdown

Meanwhile
her father shakes his head as
he watches her
“You can’t be serious,” he says. “Are
you meditating again to ask God to make life
fair? Is that it? What happened?
Was your Uber late? Internet connection slow?
Heheh!”

She doesn’t hear him. The voice
in her headphones says, “And twist. Remember
to always twist. If you only stab
him it’s not enough. That’s just gonna do
a little damage that can be fixed with a quick visit
to the ER. You have to twist the blade. That’s
when the significant damage happens. Twist
as much as you can. Show no mercy.
Take advantage of
the fact that he will not expect this from you.”