Repartee

This poem is born from thoughts about verbal deflections, and how we can use humor to foster or discourage conversation of depth. The final stanza is a line that I've came to me months ago, and I've been mulling it over since.

This is fact,

if I can get you

laughing, your aim

and sight are thrown off.

Think, when you lean back

to take in air,

to begin you laugh,

eyes drawing nearly shut,

you are looking away from me,

cannot see the look on my face

following patient delivery

of my patent lines.

Attempts at inquiry,

thin lines of spoken steel

sent to pierce my living skin

and bore towards my heart,

ah, these I resent,

I will not stand for meddling

in my life, which is mine,

not yours.

Laugh, this I wish from you,

give me no thought

deeper than what I’m wearing

and what I’ve said.

I am Cynic,

great wit

born of a greater wound,

laugh with me,

and never realize

it is you alone who laugh.