Who is she?
She's not from around here.
Suspicion surrounds me like fog.
These are tough times, she's from out of town.
A stranger.  Should she work here?
She grew up over an hours drive away.
And I've lived on the other side of the Earth and found comfort
in the company of others
and found that human throughline
written still in cultural, spacial, geographic differences
that sameness, those recurring human themes
Returning home, another town away
I am unknown
Can't you feel the lesson I've learned?
Can't you know what it's like to walk through
the streets of Tel Aviv
The back alleys of Paris
and see human struggles
playing themselves out before you?
And know them from deep inside
as the ones you felt on another continent?
She's not from around here
And I speak English
Don't you know what it's like a
bond in a crowded subway pushed up against
those who don't speak your language
swimming in a different culture every hour of the day
And I am a stranger here.