Joy

Knock, knock said the door,

The little children waiting to play.

Joy yelled "I'll be there!",

They played the night away.

Five years later,

The children were now teens.

They visited so rarely now,

Their faces merged into screens.

Joy tried to laugh,

But the children looked away,

As if trying to leave this cottage,

That held them trapped inside all day.

The children became adults,

And they visited as before.

They talked and laughed and joked,

But something was missing, so much more.

Joy was growing weak,

And his limbs were merely sore.

He could no longer feel the freedom,

Of playing with the children next door.

The children were now standing

Above Joy’s abrupt silence

He was now inside his coffin,

But what remained was sharp defiance.

He refused to die in shock,

Or to let the others grieve,

For he said death was just another

Of life’s tricks beneath its sleeves.

He opened the cottage door,

And time decided he'd lived too long,

So it gently took his soul away

To be planted where it belonged.