When People Like To Play Their Games Poem by Patti Masterman

When people like to play their games;
That 'careful or you might make me angry' game
They never stop to consider
That I might be the better one, at playing it;
Me: always so sweet, peace mongering, forgiving..
And what if being pissed off were my natural state;
That I must suppress, all the time
In order to act civilized, to seem cordial
And then, their sloppy challenge invites me
To take off the kid gloves
And allow the real me to engage finally..

What a blessing; finally allowed to be myself
Open season now officially declared, by you;
When countries go to war,
There's no need to wait then, until a cannon actually fires:
The fighting began when the hostilities got started
And how much better to be the first to fire, than the last.
But clearly, it is better not to start a war
For no reason; if not to defend
Some cherished belief;
Because you might very well lose,
And how would you feel then-
To think that you lost everything
In order to defend nothing?