It was the only night
I felt real—comfortable.
At a gathering of young bloods,
and us, their mentors.
Awe wrapped me,
like midnight sheets,
tending to shivers
coursing through my veins.
A portrait of me was captured,
as if the lens was beguiled.
As if I were carved from marble,
so, like Mona Lisa, I smiled.
But joy crumbled.
A student stole it—the portrait, my pride.
“Who did it?” I asked,
but no truth replied.
They laughed, all of them,
as if it were a jest.
They laughed,as if I were the clown.
I forced a laugh of my own,
to cage the ire within,
to smother the sting
of embarrassment’s sting.
But ire is a beast
that wears no chains.
It slipped free,
roaring as laughter.
And between each hollow echo,
a thought gnawed at my soul:
What if the joke’s on me?
What if I am the portrait of a clown?
