The Sad Celebration

I've been broken before,
I know what it's like
to see something funny
and not laugh.
I often wished I had never smiled.
Knowing how to
and not being able to
is worse than never knowing.

Sometimes, when I see a child walking,
I can come home faster to my own.
It's because they are clean
and they have hope.
The make me believe in something.

But when there is nothing alive in me at all,
when I've been battered down
with voices,
or the sound of them,
when I have to let go
of someone or something,
when I have to say goodbye
to anything
that's when I know what it's like
to see something funny
and not laugh....

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