Soap Poem by RIC BASTASA

you wish i were true
to every word i wrote in my poems
like sadness
that i must be sad when my poems
talk about sadness

like separation and disgust and pain
that i must suffer
with the poems i write that i must have despair
and pain too
and disgust
for every word of disgust written in every word
in every line

how cruel of you
how cruel of truth
how can i justify my death when i speak only of death
and in the very poem
where i write the word
death

there is soap
there is this box of untruths in pandora and when i open it
they must spread and you may refuse to believe
me again

but it would be very cruel of you
to make these poems
all these poems be my life my only life
and lived
and day by day lived in accordance with the
mouths of these poems

empathy
is the word, it is like i am putting my feet in another person's
shoes

then i write, and i could have written about this word: happiness
joy, bliss
ecstasy, light, and amazing glory

i choose not to,
i think, i have too much of it, and i do not share it for now
there is no necessity
and i cannot really help

with so much loneliness and sadness out there
with them i stretch my hands to hold them and feel them
and they all become

myself. it is not soap then, and there are no bubbles in the skies
there is no child playing amazed by the bubbles that burst and by the
bubbles that

are so abundant.