Cloony the Clown

After seeing the picture of the Shel Silverstein book, I realized it has been a while since I have actually read any of them. I searched online for his poems and found a site with 19 of them to read. I read through, laughing at poems I thought were funny 18 years ago and surprising myself with how many I still remembered and could recite by heart.

Then I came across this one. I'm only going to link to it because it is SO sad, it broke my heart a little to read. I don't remember reading it when I was little. Maybe my parents just skipped over it, in hopes of shielding me from harsh world realities as a child. Maybe.

I understand the message now, and maybe I just didn't then. Probably I read it when I was very small and though, "What a sad clown. He should go make friends with that crazy boy named Sue and go beat up all the people who made him sad, or go find that wacko polar bear in the fridge and party with him, drinking vodka all night."

Because my parents might lie to me and avoid telling me that people can just be shits sometimes and make fun of you for being honest and vulnerable, but they would never lie to me about what constitutes a good wild party pick-me-up: the sauce.