Why Expect Any Different?

Stop wanting, stop expecting praise or gratitude,
stop thinking that anyone can become true.
They are all ungrateful: there's no point in kindness —
it wears one out, hinders all that might be best,
or so I find: for nobody is more severe
than the one, the only man, who holds you dear.

Copyright © 2004 by Josephine Balmer All rights reserved
from Poems of Love and Hate
Bloodaxe Books Ltd. / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission