"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.