“Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly,”
― G.K. Chesterton
One thing I’ve learnt over
the years is to never give
up on people, maybe I say
this because of profound
self-reflection, looking in
myriad mirrors of different
shapes, sizes –
convex and concave to find
a version of myself who has
transcended the anger that
scalds the soul and the bitterness
that roots itself in the deepest
recesses of the heart,
or perhaps I say this because
we don’t have the authority
to canonise saints and condemn
sinners, to judge, sit on the high
seat and say, “Guilty!” or the modern
synonyms, ‘narcissist,’ and ‘shit.’
If we traveled to the gloomy, musty
antechambers of our mind, we’ll
also find broken chandeliers and
snuffed out, rusty candelabra,
even the mystic with
an obsessive devotion to the truth
who makes his way
to selcouth dimensions
finds himself in Isaiah’s throes,
or Peter’s discomfort when
confronted with his depravity
or to use a hackneyed phrase,
‘the skeletons in his closet.’
The broken fall in love with their
suffering, and the successful
gasconade like they own a
piece of the seventh heaven,
the rich, control and manipulate
and the poor are perfidious,
the religious, self-righteous
the redeemed, flawed,
self-love is a myth because
everyone already loves themselves
so much that they think the
planets and the stars orbit
their world. Even some
contemplating suicide
do it because their dreams of
a cottage overlooking a verdant
valley interspersed with hyacinths
have become nightmares
of ash and bone. In all this,
I’m as guilty as you.
So let’s reflect love instead
of grabbing and grabbing it,
taking and taking and taking.
Not flattery, but a love that
conquers, a love that doesn’t
fit the other into a box
where everything’s
neatly arranged like furniture
in an immaculate living room.
Perchance I sound idealistic,
but despite all my fear and
insecurity, lust, madness,
and pride, I know that within
me, there’s a wellspring of
affection and I know you
have it too.
Ordinary Person 
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