Getting it wrong or times I regret being myself

A reckless promise made
To someone I barely knew
An obvious mistake the second they
Decided it was time to make good
On something said in jest

The time a good friend
Sat me down to make me learn
A life lesson I would have walked
Naked through the desert
To avoid ever knowing

The time I decided it was my duty
To leave things in a better condition
By attempting to explain a toxic
Workplace dynamic
To the deliberately deaf

The times I took jobs I knew would be awful
Because I couldn't let myself believe
There would be anything better around the corner
The times I stayed in them
The times I turned the other cheek

The one time I was naïve enough
To stand up for myself
Only to be shot down
In a vicious character assassination
By someone I trusted not to abuse their position of power

The time I was attacked in the street
For being in the wrong place at the wrong time
And observing some nefarious activity
In which I had less than zero interest
Following a truly lousy evening

The times I was groped on the bus
And couldn't bring myself
To make a loud scene
Cursing myself for cowardice
As much as the perpetrator

The times I listened to my detractors
More than my supporters (always, sorry).
Most of them live in my head
It gets hard to avoid their commentary
While dehydrated

The time I tried to explain my surprise
At the coloured anatomy of cats
Over board games, while tipsy
Offending my best friend's husband
So badly he refused to visit for seven months

The time I let my conscience overrule social norms
The time I spoke the unfiltered truth
Without thinking, sleep deprived
Beyond the wit of my audience
And suffered for it

The time I dropped my phone in the street
And swore
But failed to hang up on the grandmother
Who never forgave me
A single lapse in a public setting

The time I couldn’t help my father, dying of a heart attack
Because I was half-way to a funeral for another relative
At the other end of the country
He still whispers to me of his disappointment
Late at night when I can't sleep.

I am sorry, dad.  I tried.
Nothing I did or did not do
Would ever have been good enough
In that moment
Made for regret

The time I believed a loved one’s lies
More fool me
Twice, three times, staying
Until I told myself it was the right moment
To walk away

The time I couldn’t believe
Someone's personal truth
Despite understanding all the small ways
In which we are blinkered
By our own experiences

For once I found it hard to see
Through someone else's eyes
And tried to fill in the blanks
Meaning two plus two
Made minus five

The time I blurted out a correction
And ruined a first impression
In front of strangers
Because my inner perfectionist
Refused to suffer a lie

The million times I could not bring myself to say no
For fear of hurting the feelings
Of someone who lacked the same consideration
For my own
Assuming they were my equal

The time I called the police because my neighbour
Was being beaten by her partner
The time the despatcher didn't care
And I did not challenge their callous response
Because I was too concerned that help arrive quickly

The times I have swallowed my pride, my words,
Bottled up my feelings, ignoring the knots
In my gut at the wrongness of what I knew
I was about to sacrifice - my dignity
My sense of self

All these times call to me on repeat
Those grey days when I am feeling
'Lower than a snake's ass'
As my other grandma used to say
Rudderless, unworthy of love

And now, at almost forty
What is all this worth, this much regret?
We live and learn
Perhaps the real problem is
I do not know the answer yet.

The Superior Man

Pickle me in kindness
So my praises, sweetly sung
May give fragrant, brief reminders
Of the works these hands have spun

Leave no gentle act unlauded
Let no deed pass as unknown
Thus may toil be fair-rewarded
‘Ere we trundle, meekly home

While you while away the hours
In your elevated chair
Someone else is pushing flowers
To ensure you may stay there

And where you ignore their efforts
Just imagine what could come;
If we all were judged on merits
Would you still be number one?

The Trade

Where is this freedom
Promised me
When first they told me
Work makes free?

I look around
And know I’m lost –
What’s free I buy
At such a cost

No youth, enjoyment
Holidays
Solid employment
Only pays

In minted coin
As all are robbed
Of our free time
We’re bobbed and jobbed

And pensioned off
Freely to freeze
As Winter brings us
To our knees

A lifetime spent
In servitude
While taking care
To save on food

Essentials only
Frugal thrift
Is hardly free
To those who drift

Through twilit streets
And shopping malls
In suits and boots
Or overalls

No longer knowing
Why they strive
For Freedom finds
Few left alive

The cult of youth

Young, strong, slim and glowing, healthy
Set in mind and body-wealthy
Faces fortunate, not frail
Flaunt our features, wear them well

Snigger at the lesser beings
Those whose ill-health, meaner means
Has brought with clear, defective genes
A sentence: life – no more than peons

They’ll not amass our hills of beans
Content must be with smaller dreams
Cannot aspire to join our schemes
No matter skills or knowledge gleaned

For visible, we’ll not give quarter
To an ugly son or daughter
All we want is what you see
To know we are still young, carefree

Our cult of youth looks outward bound
Designer footwear cushions ground
From god-like strides as effortless
We turn from age. Though Time’s caress

May touch our tanned and flawless skin
None will to Nature dare give in
We’ll cut our bodies on a whim
Reshape our figures, smooth our skin

More pills and potions will we try
In hope, perfection we can buy
As proof against that living lie
We cannot teach ourselves to fly.

Yet all who crawl upon this Earth
By careless accident of birth
(In view of those who lack their mirth
And little know their fellows’ worth)

Will in the end find more than looks
Do tip to balance Peter’s books
And leave the shepherd to his crooks
Whose vanity bred cock-a-snooks

When end of days takes pride of place
Beribboned, scarecrows, clad in lace
In horror may all stand and face
Their judgement day among the race

Of riff raff we thought far behind
That caught us up, and being kind
Did not disturb dysmorphic mind;
Self-satisfied, perspective-blind

But pitying deluded state
Ephebophiles with much self-hate
Resemblance to their idols late
In clothing only – such is Fate

This cult of youth is futile jest
No man’s immortal, nor can rest
At favoured age – we all are pressed
By march of season, bib to vest

Taking a back seat

Racist grannies on the bus
Tut and stare – it’s them v. us
Martin Luther was their King
But did his words mean anything?

Instead of peace from A to B
Oneupmanship is all they see
A trade in slaves they scowl and claim
No other story merits blame

How then may one girl best explain
Two thousand years of Jewish pain?
Our ancestors have suffered too
But my pale face meets hostile view

No white devil yet understands
The misery of foreign lands
Of being torn from all you know
And sold for servitude, although

If we had time enough to show
So many tales of mankind’s woe
Are written, spoken, danced and sung
To exorcise this bitter crumb

As painful history lays bare
How little pity all do spare
For those they see as lesser folk
The truth is plain, a racist joke