It’s alright, my love,
We don’t have to agree on everything…
Surely we can still find
The places where we can meet,
The places where we
Remember the humanity in each other.
I won’t throw out the attributes
Of love, of compassion, of kindness in you.
Please don’t throw them out in me
Because we disagree.
Look harder, can you still see them?
I see yours.
And I know it’s difficult.
I feel threatened too and
That makes me what to close off to you.
It’s just that, at the moment,
I notice so much division,
So much pain and fear,
That I question what motivates me
To shut you out.
It’s true, there are some
I have had to walk away from over the years.
Because meeting and feeling met
Is something reciprocal.
In the cases where I have felt I am
Over reaching, over extending,
Over accommodating to meet another
I have had to walk away.
Even still, I recognise that
Whatever it is in that person that
Can’t meet me or
That I can’t meet in them
Doesn’t mean that
They are wrong or bad.
It doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of
Depth of relations with others or
That there are parts of them where
We may, one day, find a meeting place.
Sometimes there is
Abuse of power and then it is
Clear to walk away or speak out.
Sometimes the abuse is not so clear.
It’s more complex then.
When it comes to the world at the moment.
When my heart bleeds with the division I see.
I’m looking again into my being and
I am wondering how we can allow
Our differences without writing each other off
Because of our pain, our fear, our relationship with death and change?
Imagine a world where we all agreed.
Wouldn’t it be a bit bland and lacking in creativity?
Where we rub up against each other is
Where we find our edges.
We just haven’t been taught how to do this
In a way that is constructive.
I’m learning. We’re learning. Slowly.
There’s a lot of repair to be done.
A lot of years of closing off to each other,
Of disrespecting boundaries,
Of disrespecting choice,
Of labelling each other into fixed boxes,
Of abuse, gas lighting and
A habit of ‘us and them’ thinking.
I’ll try not to see this so
Right and left so
Black and white so
Us and them.
Will you?
Hayley Price (C)