Sharp Words

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

But words hurt ten times worse. 

I don’t dare believe what the mind conceives,  

Its commentary designed to deceive.

When compliments come, they pass right through,

on a river I barely perceive.

But one insult arrives and dams up the flow,

Hoarding all my attention with greed. 

Thoughts flay at my face, I cannot save it,

they pierce through my armored shell.

My pride is at stake, reputation is covered

In tar and feathers from the insults they muttered. 

Oddly enough, it’s not what they said,

But what my mind thinks of instead. 

Worse even so, it’s not even that,

For often I misunderstand. 

In a world full of mouths that wont shut up,

Bullets fly casually through the air. 

I used to stick myself right in the middle,

And wonder why I got shot.

It’s like my mind wanted the pain,

It just loves to gripe and complain.

Such contradictions in what the mind wants

Help me realize it’s simply insane. 

I cannot control what others say,

And to avoid it is to run away.

It’s part of living in society,

The cost of admittance to being human. 

Why make myself so vulnerable,

Stick my neck far out of my shirt?

Pain is for the mind, it’s not for me,

There’s nobody here to be hurt.