Want To Hear A Joke?
Knock, knock…
Here’s where you ask, Who’s there?
So who’s there?
Me.
I’m not sure I understand.
You’re supposed to say, Me who?
Then laugh as I say something
witty and endearing
even if it isn’t funny,
which it probably
won’t be anyway.
Stop looking around you,
I promise the clock doesn’t care for the joke,
nor does the door,
nor the frayed hem at your wrist,
nor the scar on the back of my hand.
The laugh is for me and me alone.
So, if you would,
please,
do it for me…
Me who?
Me meaning me.
Meaning no one except myself.
Alone and fragile,
I need your laugh,
your oral stamp of approval,
or at least acknowledgement
of my splendid sense of humor.
Tell me, please,
that I am a ray of sunshine,
a shining star,
a pretty little flower,
the barbed hook in your open eye,
or some other cliché.
warm and fuzzy
like a freshly-killed bear,
its claws and teeth yanked hard
from their roots.
That is what I need from you.
So, if you would,
please,
do it for me…
I don’t get it.