Education always was a huge unfair competition because we live in a "winner takes all" competitive society. That's why there are private schools and anyone who can afford them pays for them. That's why parents decide where to live based on school performance if they can afford to. Disadvantage has always been there, concentrated into the poorest, piling on yet another disadvantage. From the time babies are born parents give them every advantage they can if they are able... if we actually want a fair society... the competition has to end... and that is a huge change for the better if we can learn to love each other enough and cooperate enough to achieve it. Perhaps if wages were more fair, if living standards were good for all, we'd stop the competition between our kids. This is such a hunger games world... compete if you want to eat and have a home... I think it's time we stopped all that, anyone else got an appetite for change?
It is tough to watch one you love being out-foxed by a deceiver.
I ache when I see you smile.
I want it to be directed towards me. For me. Because of me. I want to bring you joy; be the source of those lit eyes and dimpled cheeks. I watch you bring so much happiness to those around you. Feel the warmth you’ve given me.
You show me how to find beauty in a cruel world.
You try so hard to do so well. You worked hard. You fought for every step; even if it wasn’t always in the right direction. You wanted to fly and now you’re soaring. I’m afraid. I’m so afraid you’ll crash. That I’ll have to watch it happen. I ache to think there’s no way for me to help if you do.
I still watch you.
Sometimes it becomes a source of guilt. If I have no place in your life, why do I keep following you like this? If you noticed, I’m scared what you’d think of me. I've never been heartbroken before. For that I’m sometimes glad I know you won’t.
We’ll never meet. That’s probably a good thing.
If we met, if we spoke; what would you think of me? That’s what scares me the most. Sometimes I’m left wondering if it’s better we don’t meet. Maybe it would be better if I let you fade from my life, back out of it like you were never there.
But I can’t let go.
Did you ever read the words I did, the ones a child hasn’t forgotten? ‘Kindred spirits’. They make me think of you. Is that truth or my wish? My instinct is that it’s true. But in the same thought I know we wouldn’t agree. The same thoughts or feeling but with a different approach?
I want to be there. I write late into the night because of how much I do. I want to hold your hand. To dry your tears. To take the pain and anger I know you hide. Yet here I sit typing without aim, watching through a screen. To develop an unattainable desire wasn’t wise. I knew it when I started. But we keep moving. Has it been two years already?
The ache won’t fade.
A royal crown sits upon his head like a boat stuck on a stream in one place. It's like it's entangled in the roots of his hair, like it's apart of him. In the shower, at work, in front of everyone. It's going to be there for ever and ever. But who cares? I like it that way.
That warm, raspy voice that possessed his cords that night, sent nerves dancing up my spine. His smile sent my mind into an uncontrolled, captivated spiral and his light touch lingered, it branded my soul with a simple mark: infatuation. To call it love would be a mockery of my heart, a symbol of my dying innocence. But every tempered word he spoke invaded my mind, like ivy tendrils seeking any point of weakness to enter; they wrapped my body in a blanket of comfort and consumed my soul in the heat of lust.
I remember that night in a soft, painful haze. It's the night that taught me the difference between love and infatuation. Love is unconditional, eternal... Infatuation? It dies.
Upon the earth was a sweet blanket of clover, each blossom arching gently upward toward the sun's light. And so in the brilliant green of it's foliage, those soft clusters of three, was a safe place for the soles who ventured there,
The empath is the producer level of the emotional ecosystem, transforming light energy into the sweetness all else depends on.
We sit there, talking, she and I.
Only interested in keeping the conversation going - heaven forbid there be a pause...
She says something - followed by my pretendedly interested response.
I say something - and she politely laughs.
Neither of us talking about the things that really matter:
Our deepest secrets, our hidden pain, or what brings us true joy...
There we are: completely blind to how superficial this conversation really is.
Tears rolled down, wetting every part of her cheek. Her eyes pleaded for Succor and help, albeit that she knew no one was coming. There was only darkness as her own demons haunted and strangled her. She was suffocating. In the pain of abandonment she almost forgot how to feel. She desired amnesia so that all this suffering could fade away, fade and allow memories of laughter to soothe her, to restore peace in her life.
Some saw a bullet hole, but she saw the person around it. She saw the pain in the one still living and the potential of those who lay cold in silent greyness. She saw the perfect skin, the arms that the mouth that must have known laughter at one time. She saw a human rather than a statistic and felt the grief of those who loved them and the fracturing echo of the universe.
Kind hearted people can break. Kind hearted people go into emotional debt to give to others when they should be taking care of themselves. Often times they are the unhealed victims of trauma, they suffer emotional flooding and an inability to see their own worth. They are a blessing, the are wonderful, yet they are rarely aware of their own fragility or needs.
"Them and us" is perhaps the most insulting of all phrases in a modern democracy. We can comprehend a need to talk of disadvantages of particular groups historically and make a case for acknowledging specific needs. We can also see that the best way to level-up society is to tackle poverty, hunger, education, housing inequity, healthcare access and creative arts freedoms. Yet before we have a chance to put such ideas into action, to reform institutions with more love and comprehension of best practice, we find there is a target on our back... we have become a "them." It's a strange feeling to have to respond to, yet response is always better than a reaction. We can respond with love, thought and understanding, yet some will notice the "them" target and react with vitriol instead. So will we listen to those who are ready to respond with love or keep spinning into disaster as the paranoid reactionaries take over stage and mic? I still believe humanity can become an "us," that we can win together.