To an Ingenue, Who Still Has a Full Hand of Cards

I see myself in you:

Your slow smile, your aesthetic eye, your humor,

Your preference for substance, your hatred of rumor.

I see myself in you:

The quality of energy bursting out

Is like me after conquering some of my doubt

(But before my close encounter with burnout).

I see myself in you,

and I hope that you find better things to do

With the time and the talents given to you.

Cut It, Razor-Wit!

There is no humor without potential to offend.

There is no humor that's not means to an end.

Jesters use humor to amuse the whole court

and to render their princes a skeptic's report.

But I am no prince. I'm not even a jester,

and in me, an ego is well-known to fester,

So my humor oft aims to more frivolous ends:

Entertaining myself, or impressing new friends,

and some jokes that I spoke, without thought, to seem cool

Were both badly misaimed and quite needlessly cruel.

I wish that I reserved sharp words for those whose actions earned it.

I wish I wrote, and not told, that joke, 'cause then I'd simply burn it.