Stop, please cease and desist.
Don’t fatigue me with humor
from an encrypted list

That only you have the key to
and do not wish to share
as you give me yet another vacant stare.

Egotism seems to be your religion,
a character flaw so ingrained into you
that it’s exclusive to everything you do.

Vindictiveness is your fallback,
a solitary friend who knows you well
as you sit there alone in your man-made cell.

Even if you were to apologize
for your misbegotten callous deeds,
your sickly smile causes it to be ill received.

Still you smile that sardonic smile,
thinking you are the king’s clown
to entertain the masses as you fall down.

Tell me a riddle of what I did see
in you that made me think in that moment
I would find a soul deserving my lament.

Oh woe is me to ever possibly call you a friend
Woe is me to not see the signs
so easily to be seen by the blindest of the blind.

Love could save you and make you whole,
change the boy to a man and the fear to admission
that life offers a cure to your self-inflicted condition.

Little do you know that time is not kind.
It seeks no friends, it cares not for your life.
It does not sit and wait for you to make up your mind.

By Philip Wardlow