Warning Signs

A warning sign for some medications:
Do not take this with alcohol.
Another alongside the first:
Do not operate heavy machinery.

It’s important to understand
The reasons for the warnings,
Lest in contradiction
One finds self destruction.

A warning sign for construction zones:
Hard hat required.
Another near the first:
Danger High Voltage.

How many ways must it be said
To drive home the point
If you don’t know what you’re doing,
You’d best keep out?

Life is full of circumstances,
Has a plethora of situations
Where heeding warning signs
Might reduce pain and suffering.

A warning sign for emotional abuse:
Provoking others to jealousy.
Beware the heavy machinery.
Another right beside:
Abundant employment of the silent treatment.
Do not consume with ethanol.

If another’s versions of events
Make of them a saint and you something less,
Danger: High Voltage.
If always those versions vary slightly from what happened,
Beware: an attempt to take control may be ahead;
Hard hat required.

© 2014 H.K. Longmore

Related Posts:

• Dating Emotional Predators: Signs to Look Out For – this article is what inspired this poem. A quote from the post: “I cannot count the endless number of abusers I have met who begin their ploys with superficial charm accompanied by self-absorption and an actual lack of empathy or substance…. Skilled predators are quite charming and you can easily learn to see through this by observing the way they exaggerate how they feel about you and their glib ways of showing you that they ‘care’ when they really don’t.”
• 21 Warning Signs of an Emotionally Abusive Relationship
• Why I Didn’t Realize My Relationship Was Emotionally Abusive
• Spotting the Signs of Emotional Abuse – “Since emotional abuse can occur in so many different ways, it’s often difficult for a loved one — or even the abusers themselves — to recognize the signs of emotional abuse. Making things worse is the fact that many victims of emotional abuse become ‘brainwashed’ into believing that the abuser really cares for them.”