Meanspiritedness

it’s a hunger that learned sarcasm

a small, rattling god

living behind the teeth

it feeds on flinches

on the micro-collapse of someone else’s posture

on the thrill of making warmth evacuate a room

it’s not strength

it’s starvation with opinions

it sharpens words

because it has nothing else sharp

it throws elbows in conversation

because it has no center of gravity

it mistakes cruelty for clarity

confuses domination with presence

calls it “honesty”

to avoid the autopsy

it’s a cold craft

a little blade you keep polishing

until you forget

what it was ever for

it cannot build

only nick and retreat

nick and retreat

like a cowardly weather system

and here’s the secret it hates most:

it’s loud

because it’s terrified

of being touched without armor

it sneers because tenderness

would expose the hollow

it wounds because it cannot risk

being seen

and found wanting

it’s the sound a soul makes

when it would rather poison the well

than admit it is thirsty