The Na/GloPoWriMo Day 25 challenge is to write a poem that takes the form of a warning label.

Handle With Care
by Michael Romani

There in all that subterfuge misspoke
Are the mirrors of the hearts we broke
Token glimpses of jaded flakes of vanity
Worn thinly as we push the edges of sanity

Playing graceless games in wounding others
Those who at other times might be our brothers
If we hadn't had the accidents of different mothers
And we had learned to truly love one another

Time is fleeting and everything seems temporary
To the point where being nostalgic is contemporary
Not to prove myself a master of the contrary
But as I look around each moment is something extraordinary

We need to learn to handle all of this with care
Learning that no two are alike so why do we compare
We should instead exonerate all that adds up to verity
And instead you just stop, laugh and stare at me

Desperately reaching out in our all too human fragility
Each marked "Handle With Care" in our bleeding humanity
The scars that never heal leave psychic wounds burning
As we wring our hands in near constant need for learning

There is in the eulogy our binds to the necessary past
In the good and the bad are those things we wished could last
At moments we are certain we could almost touch the stars
As we knock down another round at some nameless seedy bar

.. and yet, I still can't drink 
                  you off my lonely mind...

(c) April 25, 2018  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved