extended hand

so fragile we are---
broken eggshells on
the pavement,
split ends tearing,
puzzle pieces
scattered all over the
place with no one
qualified enough to
put them together,
selves upon selves
upon selves upon
selves, questions
contradicting
assertions &
assertions wanting
to blot out any
further questions,
open wounds that
keep bleeding
no matter how hard
we try to stop it
with gauze, with
multiple clothes,
with cauterizing tools
& yet,
when a hand is extended,
the walls go up,
the barbed wire gets rolled
out & the bayonets get
sharpened---
the older you get the harder
you get & the harder you get
the more dead inside &
the lack of a belief that
anything remotely resembling
“trust” even exists anymore,
seems to greaten, not lessen,
as the days go by.

when the hand is extended,
we want to know what the body,
the heart & mind attached
wants with us---we want to know
the ulterior motives, we
want to know why anyone
would possibly throw a buoy
when we are drowning, for
what could the stopping of our
disintegration profit them?
what do they have in mind?
for certainly, no one in this world
does something for
nothing.

and this is the way we’ve been raised,
this is the way our wonderful
western capitalist catastrophe
has carved us, us good little citizens,
passing up real compassion when
it is offered to us,
because we can’t figure it out.

what if sometimes “a cigar is just a
cigar?”
&
a helping hand is just
a helping hand.