Why do people laugh when they are uncomfortable?

Especially, why do they laugh when someone succeeds

at something they failed, or never tried at all,

erasing their composure and gravity

leaving them to float unrealized?

 

It's a trend I've mostly noticed with young white men,

(yes, I've grown fed up with their crap, it's fine)

people who have always been portrayed as the most powerful,

the most creative, the most... everything,

directing it towards women, queer people, other races,

just everyone they feel shouldn't succeed better than they.

 

This doesn't excuse women either, 

but they usually encourage other people,

and only laugh in discomfort when they feel

 

trapped.

 

Maybe it's just me.

Maybe I am alone in feeling this is inappropriate

and uncomfortable,

and dozens of other things that make my soul

feel like it's been drug through mud

and left the dry so the dirt cuts it.

 

But I suspect someone else knows.

Someone else's laughter,

someone else's jokes,

someone else's unkind smiles

have put people on edge.

 

And it isn't fair to make something that is supposed

to help us socially bond

into a weapon that leaves us unable

to see others as anything but threats.

 

Maybe it is just me,

hiding behind these machines.

 

Alone for fear of laughter.