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Writer's pictureKeshav Suryanarayanan

#45 - Jokes


People talk.

Here and there,

Him and her,

They all do,

It's normal, I hear.

They joke,

Point fingers,

They stand around and laugh.

Very smart people, no less,

And well made jokes.

But for what?


It's just fun, some say.

For others, it is their defence mechanism.

It's funny,

How their defence,

Depends on breaking other people's defences.


Some of us build walls around ourselves,

Some of us fences.

The walls enclose us completely.

The fences still have some gaps,

You can glimpse us through.


When you break defences,

It's not just the defences that break down.

Some fences turn walls,

Some collapse entirely,

Inhabitants and all.


They tell me I don't know their journey,

They seem so sure,

They must be right.

But does anybody know anybody else's?

What about the other journeys that they make hell?


I was once there,

On the other side.

I used to lash out once.

It took a second to come up with a joke,

A jab,

Maybe a few minutes of laughter followed.

But what it did,

I never knew,

It never showed.

A wiser man than me once said,

The wounds of the spirit leave no scars


I didn't see how we break people everyday,

People already broken and put together,

Many times over.

Can't we see other people and feel their pain?

People who are already a little bowed down,

People who already walk a little slower,

Just people.


Is the laughter worth it?

A few minutes of it

Carving out days of our lives,

Involuntarily spent in the abyss,

Picking up the pieces again,

Trying to make ourselves whole.

They drop the bombs and walk away,

And the effects probably never show.


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