When Can We Stop Feigning?

When you twitch and twirl in flames of grief Do you have the mood to douse another's heat? When there is a chronic wound that never heals Can you attempt to glue up another's slivered heart? When you slither like a snake as on a polished floor Do you dare to support another to rise to his feet? When you stifle your sighs in the throat Can you urge someone to smile and laugh? When thoroughly defeated of your own hopes Can you exhort others to dream great dreams? When a thunderbolt strikes your clear sky Can you sing of clouds trailing in the blue? When blinded with the mist of woes Can you enjoy the song of falling rain? When dead worlds of pathos wake in your life Can you advise someone to bury his past? When you hear the startling whispers of death Can you preach on the art of joyful living? Alas! We are fated to wage a perennial war Between our emotions real and what we put on When can we dispense with this feigning? Is it until we withdraw into Death's lone retreat?