Et Tu, Camus Poem by Laurence Overmire

I’m a strange bird
Maybe no stranger than you perhaps but
I sure seem strange to me
I need to love and be loved
And I don’t have much success with either
I want to run up to all these strange folks
And give ‘em a hug and wish ‘em well but
I can’t do that or people would think I’m strange

So all I can do is use these words
Strange words loaded with feeling

But words are easily brushed aside
Without ever making a coherent connection
It’s a strange thing, this strange, strange
Life of mine
But I give it to you nonetheless
In the hopes that someday
What may now seem strange
Will, in the test of time, prove to be

Perfectly normal.


(Previously published in Some Words: A Place For Poetry, Fall 2003)