So Sensitive

Why can't you be normal?

Why can't you just not be bothered?

Why do you get tense and tight and angry?

Where is the laughter like others?

Is it always so serious?

So plagued with meaning?

Why must your heart get hurt and wounded?

Your empathy rage and connect

Dots and pieces that no one wants you to?

Can't you just offer a fake smile?

Drop your shoulders an inch?

I cannot. I cannot.

I've been this way since I was little,

Serious and hurt and overly aware.

A child with her jaw stubbornly set,

Glaring at adults and other kids

Spouting out why she is angry,

Why they are wrong.

Why they are cruel.

Why the joke isn't funny.

It's not of my heart and

If I were to laugh,

I must ask why am I finding it funny?

Things are funny due to shock or truth,

Aren't they? If I laugh about rape,

I'm saying it's funny if it's pretend.

Why would pretend make it funny?

If I laugh about violence against women

I am saying it's a relatable feeling and again

That it is funny when it's pretend.

But, if it's funny when it's pretend,

Is it not funny when it's real?

Stop. Stop.

You're over thinking.

As always, your brain is running

Deep down trails and roads

No one asked it to go down.

As always, you're ruining the mood.

You're hating the world and all of

The men that laugh and sneer

And joke about women, about you, the way

Growing up the men

Said it as truth and with meaning.

I hear the same words now as jokes

And cannot find the urge to laugh

Because I know many laughing believe

The joke to be true.

They go home and really wish

To beat or strike. And some do.

They treat their wife

Like an object for pleasure and ownership.

It's a nightmare on loop

That the world is so cruel

And people so vile.

My skin crawls, I feel sick.

I get silent and straight,

Angry and sad.

I ruin the mood because

I've never had great emotional control

So shut down to nothing when

I fear my feelings over spilling.

But shutting down to nothing

Still crushes the mood.

Yet, I cannot pretend

Try as I might,

To be anything but angry and upset.

It was not funny when it was

A child being told this is her

Place in the world.

It was not funny when it was my mother.

It is not funny when men joke

About strippers that are

Struggling to get by and left with no choice,

Or trafficked into the life by men

To now become the brunt of a

Men's pleasures and jokes

As he further turns her into a

Mere object for his lust and laughs.

Or when he expresses how

Annoying and exasperating women are

Then tucks in a 'joke' about when

Women could be beat to be made

To hush and listen.

It's not funny when many

Men still believe that to be

The way the world should be

And are fighting to go back.

It's not funny when I and

Every other women will be

Harassed, attacked, and so much worse.

It's not funny when I know

His jokes are really happening

Right now in the world around me.

He jokes about beating his wife,

While I know there are

Hundreds who are doing it

As he drops the joke.

And they are encouraged,

Emboldened by his joke

As others laugh.

I must ask, why is it funny?

Why? Why? Why?

Why is pain and suffering at

Another's expense funny?

He's not joking about himself,

He's not commenting on his

Own bleak experience.

He's just copying what so many

Men have said and done

In joke on stage for years

As part of the battle of

Mocking, hating, hurting,

Objectifying women.

I get tense. I get angry.

And, I ruin the mood.

Words I've heard a million times echo,

"Why are you so sensitive?"