melissaahowells - Funny, Not Funny

Funny
not funny
how I can't stand myself inside anymore
I'd like to take a scissors and cut pieces out

I can't stand how
my brother is right in front of me
but he is gone far far away
the shadows in his eyes
make him look hunted, haunted
like a stray
I feel guilty because
he lives in a one room closet of darkness

I can't stand that

I can't stand how
the youngest brother
lectures me and believes how much better his life is going now
that he has cut us out
and how we never quite measured up
to his precise and exacting standard
I can't stand it
but here I am

and how it is that
he's able to erase us without a second thought
even though
I know he knows
we share the same night sky

I can't stand it
but here I am

I can't stand how
I'm getting older
and its not any thing like what I remember
or long ago what I've seen
I don't feel new and improved
or even bolder
I slump
my heart lives in my left
my right shoulder
and gets punched
I can't stand it
but here I am

my Grandparents had things so different
more respect
real admiration
close hugs and pecks on the cheek
relaxing family vacations
and people who loved them up
as they were sending them off to the great beyond
they were
only alone
when they chose to be alone

I can't stand it
but here I am

I feel cold
like I'm always walking into a gusting wind
and my clothes and my brain
are soaking wet

I've
no Grandchildren
our parents are planted like stones
for more than ten years
I have no children
friends have moved on or died suddenly
while bodily pains have moved in
and multiplied
I have words
but not much conversation
I'm tired of being disagreeable but why
is it that the invisible
are the older getting old?

I can't stand it
but here I am

funny, not funny
how the moving hive buzzes
discounts and calls it progress
each and every day
how funny, but not funny
that in my biggest imaginative story
I could never have believed it would have turned out
in this twisted way

funny, not funny
how there's so little time and place
for freedom
for embracing
for seeing and believing
for gazing into the truth
of one another eyes
and how the idea of truth
is emeshed within the lies

one time twenty years ago
I'd carefully decided to prepare
my waiting aluminum pod
capable of launch
I was ready to leave quietly
after a serious chat with Whom I Thought
Was God

I can't stand this anymore
but here I am

things are funny, not funny
I look across the table
across the briefness of the room
across the pool at the gym
to see the warm spark that is only you
your face
so funny, but not funny
I remember my reasons
why I chose to stay, to be the fool
to do my best
calmly to remain

please show me the reasons now
in your funny, not so funny face

I want to see them in your eyes
to know I'm somewhere in there
I've found a place
and that a trace of me
lingers somewhere quietly
within your languid green gaze.

LEGAL COPYRIGHT for poem and also for this Author/Writer Melissa A. Howells
12:32 AM July 1, 2019 time/date stamped and also
for this LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD

I hope all of you reading this have found
someone , inside of you or outside of you
who is your beloved funny, not funny face.
Lucky me...my funny, not funny face has helped
me find that within, as well.