You and I

I am a fragile man

Of fragile mind, the same

I walk about and boast, privately, that I am above it all

Yet, truly, I lie beneath it

I am no better than no other

Folks that are kind but, in kind, also lie

Perhaps to obscure an inconvenient truth

About how one’s colleague isn’t that pretty

Or how one’s boss knows their jokes aren’t funny

But tells them anyway unto captive ears

So we laugh, fakely, in rehearsed unison

To continue to eke out a life where our values

Are calculated in taxes, or lack thereof

Riding the bus or driving a car only to arrive

At the same destination and the same conclusion

That regardless of creed or color or persuasion of gender

We all remain much the same and alike each other

Marching toward shared death

The moment each of us exited the womb