Why are you here?
Things can change
Tomorrow could
Be different
You have your thing
That's not unattainable

Maybe your
Version is
The person you feel
You can open up to
Maybe it's a place
You know
You can be safe

But it's out there
And it's not
That far away

To love when other people
feel happy in themselves
is the best bit of human

seeing other’s smiles
and feeling their confidence,
resilience, bliss or comfort rise
makes being alive make sense

The claws of jealousy,
covered in fibre-glass bristles,
can make you believe
that their gain is your loss
which is utter toss

Switch to embracing their joy
and you’ll employ your own

To feel
All and intensely
To care
Fully and endlessly

Is it weak?
Or is a strength?

Confusion fogging my mind,
I struggle to accept my empathy
For people
For situations
Not relevant to my own
But relevant enough
To consume me
In second hand grief

I’m drowning
Yet emerging

Can I handle these emotions
And still support those in need?

It’s a question I constantly ponder.
With another outbreak,
It’s a question I need to answer.

Come along here to the corner
Let's stitch our heart together
Weeping and hectic
For our past, that's pathetic

Here at the corner, it's dark
But far ahead our view, it's bright
Do you know? Do you see?
No? Then go back to the black sea

Empathy comes from…

Shared feeling
Shared experience
Mirror neurons firing amok
Design, chance or evolution

All of the above
None of the above

Whatever the source
It is necessary

To my existence
To my experience of the world
Getting it
Giving it

A life without empathy

Would be colorless
Tasteless
Washed in gray and empty
Of life

But if you can’t give it
And you can’t accept it

How would you know what’s missing
A sense you’ve never had

I think of empathy as a vine
Tenacious
Entwined in all aspects of life
Always growing back if it is cut down

But I see
For others
How they move through the world

Maybe that isn’t true
Not for everyone

How can a seed be planted
But how
                can it not already exist

Perhaps its buried very deep
Out of sight out of mind
Requiring water
Light
Air
Belief
To grow

Empathy is necessary to our existence
The source may be mysterious
Debated

But without it
How can we see the humanity of others
How can we see the humanity
Of ourselves

Don’t bully me,
Respect me.
Don’t talk down on me,
Listen to me.
Don’t interrupt me,
Caress me.
Don’t ignore me,
Hold me.
Just love and lust me.
Because,
Just like you,
I’m gonna die too.

When conversation
is about competition
or condemnation
rather than contemplation
we all lose.