Something A Little Different - (Post from Tug)

Here's something a little different for today's post.  Instead of updates on the exercise (which is going well), a little poem inspired by the recent debates in the news and some discussions with my best friend.  Hope you enjoy.

Come into the Open
Your eyes avoid mine
Yet
I see you there

Lurking in the shadows.

Wanting to come out

To feel

the wind warm against your sun-kissed skin
To smell
the dew fresh on cool morning grass
To hear
the ocean meet sand in ritual fits of anger and sadness

I see you lurking in the shadows

Your eyes saying more than your lips ever will

Who will embrace you?

With the wrong color skin

The wrong eyes
The wrong hair
The wrong shape
The wrong clothes
The wrong love

Yes

You are different

And you lurk

There
In the shadows

With walls so high

And boundaries cloaked in tradition

Wanting to come out

The tight fit of molded expectations

Impossible to meet

Be This

Be That
Black and White
There is no Grey
Why can’t This (or That) be Love?

You lurk

Just outside the periphery

Oversized clothes draped over hunched shoulders

Never looking up
Afraid of what the light might show

Faults or beauty?

Love or objectification?

Have your eyes have seen too much?

Joy and Pain

Hope and Despair
Love and Hate
Life and Death

How can you know

Up from Down
Inside from Out
Left from Right
Right from Wrong?

Have I pushed you away?

Have I tried to put you where you don’t fit?

I have said that no matter

What you’ve done
What you’ve worn
What you’ve said
What you’ve heard
What you’ve thought
What you’ve read

I will embrace you.

I have said that no matter

What others think of you
Or what you think of yourself

I know

Your heart.

Take my hand and

Look into my eyes
Let me see you

All of you

I will walk with you

Together we will

feel the sunlight on our naked skin
smell the dew on the morning grass
hear the ocean as it dances with the sand

You are Loved

There is Hope
There is Life.

Be the one you were made to be
Be the one with me
Be one with me

I am here

I am now
I am always with you

Love

Life
Forever