I can prove it. Most sensitive people read this title

and said, “No they don’t.” You see sensitive people

hurt easily. A misdirected piece of criticism

can languish, brewing like an abandoned tea bag

in a tea pot for days, and suddenly spiral out, like 3

wet shirts in the spin drier droning in metal banging

anger. Sensitive people, it is like they don’t have

an off switch, or in their brain their rational

equilibrium is set like weighing scales,

with a lb brass weight on one side, on the other side

a perceived slight comes down like a sack of flour.

 

 Chungk!

 

Sensitive people take on all the hurt themselves

like a bear hibernating in the cave of their gut.

They hold it until someone, and it never takes

very long, wakes up the bad tempered bear.

 

Sensitive people have this thought fault. They’re not

able to soothe the bear, to put it back to bed.

They are unable to see that only they carry the hurt,

that the hurters are nonchalant or oblivious to it.

The people that wind sensitive people up unthinkingly

don’t care. It’s only the sensitive who have this

blind spot to their jumpy passive-aggressive self.

 

They don’t see that they have a choice,

that sometimes they could inspiral,

sing a lullaby to the hibernating bear to keep

it kipping. Instead they walk about with an easily

triggered snooze button like a paranoid alarm clock.