Family reunion,
Everyone looks happy,
All the guys
Standing by the barbecue
One-upping each other,
All the women in
The kitchen talking
About the men,
Kids running around,
Underlying misery.
Deprived of the love
He needed when he
Was growing up,
He’s now unable to
Feel it for anyone else,
Including himself,
His life a caustic
Ordeal of ire
Accompanied by wretchedness,
Although, if you ask him,
He’ll assure you he’s happy.
Her actions negatively
Impacted them but
When they politely
Brought it up to her,
She took offense and
Blamed them,
Unable to admit fault
Or take responsibility
For her own behavior,
Leaving it unresolved,
As with much else
In her life.
Having been terribly hurt
Early in his life
By people he trusted,
He flailed through each day with
Selfishness and cruelty,
Ridiculing empathy,
Celebrating harshness,
Repeating the pattern.
One sleepless night,
It became clear to him
That he was trying
To get back at those who
Had injured him,
Destroying himself and
Everyone else in the process.
It dawned on him that
He was only continuing the misery and
Resolved at that very moment to
Live with kindness,
Leaving behind all the pain,
Healing himself and the world.
The group walks
Into the room,
Apprehensive faces,
Some bored.
They’ve learned that
These workshops are
Often a frustrating
Waste of time,
Nothing ventured,
Nothing learned.
Today, one at a time,
They look at a
Fellow co-worker,
And say something kind.
Enamored with positions of
Supposed authority,
Constantly fixated on
Self-preservation,
Uneasy, imbalanced, suspicious,
Routinely unenlightened,
Limiting growth,
Punishing change,
Loathing insight,
Enabling dysfunction,
Shunning anyone who
Doesn’t fall in line,
Ordinariness covering for itself.
At the end of his life,
He realizes that
His crowning achievement
Was to live in
All-consuming fear of
Everything and everyone,
Choice gifts bestowed
Upon him by a fist,
Dismissive look.
Sometimes, if he
Closes his eyes tightly,
He can just barely
Picture a place
He never dared visit,
Where he’s smiling.
There’s always that one
Individual who makes
Everyone else’s lives
Miserable, who has such a
Limited understanding of
Where he ends and others begin
That he tramples on all toes
In an unpleasant strut of
Unconscious self-centeredness,
Trapped in his own
Inflamed harshness.
It’s in the quiet spaces
Between words that he remembers
What he was and how it all
Led to this moment, whether
He wanted it to or not,
Without any semblance of order
Save for every single experience,
Every instance of gushing pain,
Pulsating regret, momentary joy,
And the evolving realization
That he was never whom they
Said he was, or whom he had
Convinced himself to be.
