Challenging Poetry

good/bad

the statement is bald
on the screen.
no inflection to give it life,
to tell me whether
the return message
should be happy
or mourning.

the young have signals to use
happy faces and hearts
and steaming piles of poo
to help each other decide
what they mean. We who
write in complete words
are lost, sometimes,
between the lines.

should I congratulate?
should I commiserate?
the next eighteen plus years
of life will be filled with
another’s needs,
to bear alone. pride
pushing all help away.

if we could touch,
I’d gather you to me,
and let you cry out
your happiness,
laugh your sorrow
onto my shoulder.
but through the screen,
I don’t know what to say.

I came to this one because I couldn't decide whether I wanted to write about good news or bad news, and then I thought about how sometimes, when it's written, we don't know whether a news is happy or sad until we get context. I mean, depending on circumstances, sometimes "I'm pregnant" (I'm not, by the way) is the saddest news in the world, and sometimes "Mother died this morning" (again, this is not my news nor anyone else's that I know) is complicated by her relief from pain. It's much easier when I have other signals to tell me what the bearer needs. So I went there, instead.