slapstick

 Heavy is the head that sees the stars, eyes aimed skyward while the road is strewn with rocks and glass. Hard is the stone that breaks the crown upon the tumble down the hill, water lost to gravity, bones bouncing down the slope. It’s in the fall and the landing. It’s where the bucket stops. There’s always someone bearing the brunt of all the sharpened laughter. The joke measured in blood and bruises and the sweetness of not being you. The face plant into the lamppost, the walk into the open manhole. It the funny you had to be there for, funny as long as you weren’t too close. There is a distance, and it’s on the inside.

Heavy is the crown made of thorns, the better to bleed you with. Supplant the grace of fragile life and limb, replace the strength with nails and crossbeams and a spear in the side for flinching. Nobody cares if you get the joke you’re living. No one cares if the sufferings aren’t their’s. Beat black and blue, and still you struggle through, the moon on the outs and the many miles to go. Every Christ an invective, every Hell and oath, they only give you so much rope. The world is always hotter and harder than your most savage determination. Frailty is the price of doing business in this human veil. Broken burned or buried the only promise the future carries.

Heavy is the heart of tomorrow, heavy are the stars that you parse. The chart so certain and the path so poorly lit, almost as if they were awaiting your stumble. A crack on the shin, a smack to the skull, the platter clatters as the glassware is dashed. The scattered laughter, the smattering of sarcastic applause, the foretold and so it goes. God snoops around the blood of your brother as you give him the old heave ho. Marked up by the business of sinning, taking every punchline in the chops, you are left to wander the wide world of wonder with little but wishes and scars for your troubles. Scuffed and mussed by all the hilarity, you wake to another day night after night. The laugh track your theme, tumbling through these wounds and words.