Daily Poem Entries

There, I've Told You

There, I’ve Told You

Don’t do this to me,
it’s not fair,
my secrets are few enough
for a man dissected and inspected
and the scars to prove it.
It’s taken over seven decades
to build some attempt at respect,
my humanity too visible
in my awareness -
and now you demand
I reveal one of the last
of my secrets.
I have so few now,
these weaknesses
that shame me so,
to insist I pretend otherwise
to the oh so pitiless world,
somehow to project the favoured image,
polished to respectability.
But you insist, and worse,
tempt me with a Merit Badge
(of Honour? Achievement?
Mockery?) and I am weak,
as confessed already,
I like those things.

This is making me stressed,
indecision divides me,
yes and no struggle for dominance
and I feel skewered
by the pointing finger.
It’s no good, I must collapse
and reach for the remote.


Line Count: 32
Free Verse (well, it’s me, what did you expect?)
For The Daily Poem, July 20 2020 (now, if only we had 20 months, that’d be a date to remember)
Prompt: Tell me about something you love to do to relax.