Poetry has always been therapeutic for me. It is a release, an expression, a letting go.

I wrote this piece a few years ago out of bitterness. This piece marked a moving forward for me, a slow beginning of forgiveness towards an individual who hardly knew me, and still chose to hurt me. Today I can honestly say I feel no bitterness. I am left with a string of words that bring me back to a past pain and moment of growth and realization.

So here's to the Joker's who we can learn from, and run from.

Joker

Glad to see I was a joke to you.
Someone you could size up,
based on a fake reality.

All the while you hid behind
your joker card.
I should have known.
To never mistake silence for integrity.

Amazing how you pretended.
Amazing how you were exactly who I feared
you could be.

You thought you saw my cards.
Thought you had figured out my play.
You saw them,
Misunderstood them.
How wrong you were.

Your arrogance made you believe
That you could simplify me
Name me, by the cards I held.
But a person is more than the cards they hold.

You made it easy for yourself.
You stripped away my humanity,
Just so your conscience could be clean.

How much easier it is,
How much more acceptable it is
To play the game of deceit
With a joke as an opponent.

I never hid my cards from you,
They were out and open,
Never thinking you would believe
That all I had in life
were these cards to play.

I gave you the chance to discourage me,
silence me.
You saw I was going to lose
And said nothing.

You laughed at my attempts.
You built them up to be something heroic,
Something worth laughing at.
Something worth rooting against.

Thanks for inviting others to join in on
celebrating a game
I was fixed to lose.

A coward hides behind his cards.
When asked to show his hand,
He will show you a new deck.
He'll smile when you reveal your hand to him,
Delighting that he can rely on your honesty.

To play the game,
The dice must be identical,
The chances equal.

There's no competition
When you've shown them all your cards,
Made clear all your plays.

A man who sits behind his cards
And sees that he will win,
And then asks others to wage bets,
Is not a man worthy of a game.

Glad to see I was a joke to you.
If I had been a contestant,
The game would have played out,
And I kept unaware.

I laugh now.
I left the game I was fixed to lose.
I am the one who won.