Laughter

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My home is the only world I can

Be myself, though- who myself is,

I have not yet learned,

The world outside my picture window I don’t believe in,

As some religion that is too far-gone for me

To come to understand,

It is within the world inside,

I stand alone, or inside this world, my home,

I can be me, even if I want to harm myself, or

I feel so afraid or too shut down

I can never cry, though I can sit on my living room floor,

Thinking of all of the silly childish games

I played, or the funny things my father used to say,

Or even all of the family fun that hardly ever happened,

I can laugh alone, and aloud as

My cup holds no water,

I can also laugh at the voices I hear, most especially when they sing or

Tell me that I am beautiful,

I could pick a rose and touch its supple petals in the springtime,

But only inside my world,

A thorn might pierce the palm of my hand,

I would never cry, because I have no feelings,

 This inane laughter begins to overtake. .

Outside my picture window I can see cars driving down the boulevard,

People going to work, or out to have some fun, living their normal lives,

Something, however I had been told I never was,

I just sit on the carpet and think about the past-

The humor of it all, filtering out the bad,

The sadness and the pain all of the abuse I took.

And who is to say anything has changed?

So, I just sit cross-legged upon the carpet

And laugh and laugh- until I finally begin to cry-

Not even knowing why- conceivably

It is because I am just the same person I have always been-

Perhaps a bit older and wiser,

But still in terrible pain as far back as my thoughts take me,

Memories of it all, - how my mother wouldn’t let me cry.

She has been gone for a long time now,

But I still cannot give in to the tears,

Because I have no feelings,

Just as I were inhuman- although I do believe

I will die someday perhaps even soon-

I am alive although I have no feelings.

So I will just sit upon the floor and laugh and laugh at funny things

All day long until someone finds me here alone and takes me away

And locks me in a clean white room-

But nothing will have really changed.

I will try to think of funny things and laugh-

For some strange far out reason I can’t think of anything else-

Those times have come fewer and farther between-

I am in a different place now-

I am locked inside a room with soundproof walls-

Feelings of hopelessness and despair have just taken over-

I try to find some humor in it all, though

Something must be different about this laughter-

Someone just stuck a needle in my arm and I begin to scream, because

I have just learned who I really am, and I don’t like it.

I don’t know what is real and what isn’t now,

 I guess it doesn’t matter because I have no feelings, but now I see that

That was just a silly childish game I played- although this time

It just isn’t funny anymore, and perhaps it never was.