-written when I was 14 (in 1995). This poem won an award, and I thought it would make me a famous poet... I have a very soft spot in my heart for this poem.
I cry the tears you've never shed,
for love you've never known.
I see you smiling from the wall,
though your smile is made of stone.
Oh! Happy are you, mask of joy!
Your smile in slate is set.
Your soul feels not the pangs of pain
that humans feel, and yet...
Your smile of clay is not so deep,
for it touches not your eyes.
Those sad and sightless socket holes
full of happy lies.
Do you wonder my mask of joy,
what makes a happy man?
It's the sorrows and the pleasures,
there is nothing else that can.
In your feigning of happiness
you are safe from all that pains,
you will not feel the cuts and blows...
much less the many gains.
For life without soul, as you live mask,
is not a life at all.
The higher you climb on the ladder of life
the further you will fall.
A fire without a flame,
is just a fire place.
And life without a soul,
is a mask, without a face.