Do I Care That You Are Hurting? Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

Do I care that you are hurting?
Did you ever care...
Period!

You have not been the one,
Exclusively in pain!
And I am not immune to empathy one bit!
Now that you are ready to express 'your' feelings,
Those of others are not diminished.
Nor did they announce they have left them to quit!

What you are experiencing now...
Has no ending to it to finish.
You once could afford to ignore
The sorrows of others.
Do you believe,
The grief you have recently received...
Brings cheers to those in contant struggle?
And you are on their minds,
As if you occupy their thoughts...
With nothing else but you,
To take up their time?
Or that you with your sympathies are sought.
You have been much too self possessed.
Too self-righteously taught!

Very few I know are suffering from guilt!
'That' happens to be your own curse...
From a life lived in rehearsals.
Built,
And fenced to separate!
This agony you 'dished',
Is now yours to contemplate!
As you kept in practice to perfect...
Deceit and needless hate!
Baited.

Your issues have never defined my point of view!
Do I care that you are hurting?
Did you ever care...
Period!
Without deserting those who did?
And you did your best...
To disrespect them to mock,
Every feeling of theirs in jest.
To depict them as being,
Low life and negative...
Animals who were pests!

Do I care that you are hurting?
Are you aware just how long who has?
From those misdeeds done by you in the past!

I have learned from you,
To return the same concern!
And I certainly don't sit,
Wondering how 'you' feel!
My thoughts are with those who have been dismissed.
Not with someone like you who believes...
Every step you take,
Has been followed and worshipped!

Do I care that you are hurting?
I honestly did not think you could!