"Funny poems aren't taken seriously",
the figure splashes verbal acid over the
crumpled piece of paper I handed them.
Refusing to laugh
Curling their lip.
The paper quickly,
without a thought,
thrusted back into my hands.

They leave behind my thought
which fills the space between
myself, fidgeting alone
and them, striding away.

Does it have to be serious
to be taken seriously?

A mental court gathers itself around me
Myself, a defense attorney
Pointing a stained finger
at the figure on the stand.

I present the shoe-eating Peruvian
and his limerick friends.
Generations of drinking songs
often crass, but lasting.

There is laughter from the jury
There is hope for the poems.

Then my final evidence
the crumpled paper
I read it aloud

silence.

Is split by the dull chuckle of the figure
elbows in suit jacket pressed against the stand.

"Sure, there's examples from the past,
but you?
the troubled kid?
the depressed one?
the pariah?"

I glance at more files, appearing,
my name on each.
analysis,
evaluation,
diagnosis,
test.

Laughter, the type that jeers,
grows into a crescendo.
I huddle, hands over ears,
creasing my suit
but the muted version is worse.

I stagger to my feet.
The court has morphed cruelly
into an arena of sorts.
Brutal, simple, life-ending
decisions are made here.

My jacket is gone
My cheek openly bleeds
My sleeves have ripped
revealing the scars below.

I hurl out, from deep within me
"It's because I'm ****** up that
I need to write it!
Don't you understand?
Making people laugh
keeps and edge off the old habits
keeps the thoughts where they belong!"
My voice is hoarse.
The arena tightens.

Even as I say it, I'm overwhelmed by the thoughts
That I do not belong.
That a funny poem punctuated by my fingers
despite their past harm
delivered from my mouth
despite its harsh denouncements
and shared by my whole self
despite my self-banishment

is not enough.

I sink to the ground, stripped of my senses.
My poems have turned course
once helping ease pain,
now proliferating it.

My fingernails pierce the palm of my hand
through the crumpled paper
and two drops of blood strike the tiles.

I meant for this to be
a funny poem
But I guess it's about why
some people need to write them.

When I am done with my poem today
You might see it.
Well, if you're reading this
then you did see it.

I'm sorry.
As the fingers strike the keys
my mind is sodden.
Vacancies available, as they say.

Anyway, cast your thoughts
to those who will not see this.
Either occasional lookers
or Hello Poetry zealots
may let these pixelated words slip by.
They won't be affected.

But you are.
Now, I'm not expecting to change your life
but maybe I've got you thinking
at this moment,
when already in the past I've finished this
and sat back silently,
wishing the dull pain
of the past's barbs in my mind
away.

You are potentially similar.
Or maybe you already switched away.
****.
I forgot again.

I got up to talk to my dad.
I took out the garbage.
Did you stop, leave in the middle of this poem?
It's okay because me too.

You have read this poem,
maybe considered it.
I am almost done.

I'm not sure how this is going to end.

I guess I'll just put out my poem now
for people to find and to not find.
But remember
that the small stuff
from insignificant sources
feels for you.

When they say:
"Let's play a laughing contest.
First one loses."
I am that one.
...
I don't know why

My words
are not yelled
into any sort of
vast existence.

No
they are mumbled
forgotten
cast into a very small
and very personal
oblivion.

My voice
can be confident
collected
but I feel that more often I falter and I can sometimes ramble beyond
the extent of
anyone's interest.
When it's not self-destructive
my words are roadkill
letters splattering
as a new voice rams them over
thieving attention
leaving my words behind
battered and squashed.

They won't cross the road again.

My relationships
are fleeting
a nod
a hello jake whats new
not much
not much depth of friendship.

My poetry
isn't.
It's graffiti
an invalid dash of pixels
upon the sterile, inhuman surgery room
background of this website
from the moment it exists it will be painted and paved over by quick and emotionless
brush strokes of new words.
My tumor
created by my own cells
recklessly and harmfully multiplying
until removed.

I am not sad
I am not any flimsy definition of feeling that places a fragile blanket over the subtle and markets them as obvious.
I'm not much right now
numb
but I associated that with jarring, tumultuous
static from a television set
but I am oddly
but not so oddly calm.

Voices sound from downstairs.
I type here
knowing that my thoughts
my voice
my words
my fleeting emotion that is so strong at times that I am calloused
will never escape
my very small
and very personal
oblivion.