The Capacity for Empathy is Universal

A poem written by Anonymous.

We call it black and white.

Two people. Two choices.

Two sides. Two paths.

Two answers. Two reasons.

But the Two don’t matter.

It’s the One.

It’s the drumbeats heard on the horizon,

Saying that your way is not our way and we won’t change.

And the armies, they keep marching.

Because if one person breaks the line and cries out “I understand”

We would never be the same.

We’d learn that there is a rainbow out there, not just ink on paper.

That it’s not just the One that matters.

Not the Two, Four, Eighty-Five, One-Thousand,

It’s you.

And it’s me.

And it’s every single person who claims the title of humanity.

We treat life like a child’s spelling test

Trying to spell “empathy” with an “I” and “care” with a “Y”

Defining a name by the coins used to buy the syllables.

If only we saw others through the eyes of a child,

Not a lens filled with colors, shapes, and dollar signs.

Not with scales, rulers, and groups.

They see without the stereotypes that confine us like an isolated prison.

We walk around with labels on our forehead that grow until they cover cheeks, arms,

Every bit of skin.

And they never disappear

Because of you

And because of me.

Every time we look at others we add to that list on their skin.

We see their imperfections first,

Their situation last,

Just like it’s been done to us, time after time.

We’re stuck,

In this hopeless cycle of judgement.

Believing we only have one choice,

One.

I must be right, because you’re not like me.

Isn’t that how it goes?

Compassion means nothing.

Equality means nothing.

What means something in this world anymore?

Think about it.

Think about if one hand took another,

Offered an unexpected smile.

Empathy is universal,

Because it’s not black and white.

It never has been.

No AI was used in the submission of this work.