Chapter Text
Laughter is hard, like stone. It cracks,
and groans, and falls flat with a thump.
People will laugh at anything
you care to say, if you dig it
out with a pick and haul it up
from the memories of your life.
But nobody builds homes of stone.
Stone is heavy, and expensive.
We are miners in black depths, you
and I. My canary is dead.
"Danger! Danger!" I should warn you.
Don't go catching the black lung on
my account, sifting through my ash.
I'll work you to the bone, and more,
because I am no soft master.
Better that I toil on alone.
Yet you are something alien
to me. You bring my laughter out
of me in great heaping handfuls,
and in your palms it floats as free
as rainbow soap bubbles, bouncing
up between us with giggling,
cackling, gasping for breath joy.
I'd like a home made of that, please.