Rainbow Torture Cell Poem by Alyssa Rieper

What can one do in the situation that I was in today? I felt hopeless, friendless, speechless…

I am just in a theater, a production of bound fiction elements.

But this is completely true. The feeling I have was an individual feeling of brokenness. No one sees the seriousness of the drama. No one sees the embarrassment she must have had.

Laughing at Hamlet, it's all just a riot. Their lips curve parting to bare their clown teeth. Cruel.

I am empathetic to the child crying at the circus.

I unthinkingly protest, spilling my whole lump of thought into the room. Blue, brown, green, hazel, and red red red flash my way, a rainbow torture cell. I am not who they think I am. I am not here to spoil their fun, but I will because it was horrible.

The presence of the room stays the same.

WHY? Had I not revealed the wrongness of this?

Of course, they smirk and laugh the same... but at me.

I am the joke, now.