Written By:   Birl Brown

How can I help you in any way at all

       When all I try to say

Is spun into  a self-inflicted gall

       Of pampered pride?  My way  

Is ever deemed to trump your own,

       And make us ill at ease.

You sense a ploy designed to mar

       Your challenged sense of worth;

We might as safely stand beneath

       The sword of Damocles.

I hear the awful anger, though it isn’t said.

       It clings – dense as dirt – stuck  –

As a perfidy in   i  s  o  l  a  t  e  d   space.

       It is a broken token upon an icy bed,

A barrier – in a kind of iffy place.

        And all the while I’m holding hope

No larger than a needle’s eye,

        Of some soft word to cope –

To serve as catalyst and mollify

The hurt. You are far, far more …

Than whom you think you are.