Let Down Your Guard

If only you could see,
What I have seen,
What others have seen,
To know you are not alone,
To know you have more than a reflection,
To take on this weight,
Ghosts you see are too much for one to wrestle,
Let down your guard,
You need not remain on the battlefield,
Let others carry a torch for you
To see,
The demons are incorporeal,
And you need not be locked in their domain,
Let down your guard,
Take off your stoicism,
Let your human nature be tended,
For the tender nature it is,
You are fragile,
not weak,
Your soul needs time and space to mend,
Give You that opportunity,
That you would give
To any other,
You are but a child
of the universe,
The universe wants to see you whole,
You are but stardust,
Handle your twinkling light,
Even when it flickers,
Delicately;
Let down your guard.

“We Are All the Same”

We want to say
“We are all the same,”
And believe it with our core,
It’s the message we were taught from cut and pasted MLK,
We don’t see the whole picture
If we close our eyes and assert the truth of our sameness,
But are we all the same?
Not in experience,
I cannot say I’ve lived a day in your shoes,
To appreciate how life is as you,
Human, sentient, even then variation makes our experiences
Different,
Location, soci political climate,
Characteristics that dictate our place in it,
Social qualifiers that mark our skin, our minds, our bodies, our heritage,
And the histories behind them,
Must not be glossed over,
It must be worked through,
Recognized,
To see the truth beneath,
And the real meaning meant
Of “we are all the same”.

The Plunge In

I have said “yes”
To something
I cannot completely yet fathom,
The pieces have not all come in to place,
Come in to view,
Fear of the unknown
Keeps me at an edge,
And yet warm comfort of hope and good will eases me into the bathwater of mysterious depths,
There has to be something good,
Out of something so right
I tell myself,
As I hold my breath
Preparing for the plunge in