(How I Wish) People Were Like Poems

Today, I wish people were more like poems. 

A sad truth is dawning on me. 

I can't just be.

Most things just are.

No proof required.

No justification.

Here I feel like an instance

Of a class.

Some kind of template 

With some methods

Instantiated.

Many of my methods are public.

Others comment on them.

If I encapsulate,

They pry.

If I am abstract,

They talk.

What's going on?

I'm not going to plead any more.

I'll just shut all the doors.

Make all the methods and variables private.

Too many people tampering with the balance of it all.

Our lives are not portraits or leaflets to hand out.

Media often makes us feel so, but existence is way older,

Authentic and organic- than the glitzy hood of social media.

Human beings, like plants, need space, nourishment and nurturing

To thrive. Are plants dependent on these things?

Can they not stand on their own roots?

They can, and they do. But you cannot neglect 

The environmental variables that make them happen.

So don't comment on a life that you can't provide for

Don't make assumptions about things that are half abstracted.

You never know the full picture. No one can show you that.

But they can tell you their story. Imperfect, nuanced, raw, biased-

A story that's theirs. Don't question what they say. Don't make them

Feel deprived or privileged. Let them grow in their own right.

Don't be the weed that drains the plant of its nutrients,

By saying the wrong things. Don't try to make others like you,

Or compare their life situation to yours.

I never believed I would write a poem like this one,

But I write about what I observe- and poetry is an observation.

And not a form of advice. I wouldn't want you to take a poem as advice.

Honestly, you wouldn't enjoy it then.

I'm writing this because of what I've experienced and seen

And what's naturally found itself here.

You may disagree. In fact, this poem provides space for that.

So you can debate all you like. I will actually appreciate it.

But the fact remains that, as the times will have it,

Here I am, writing about, 

The Struggles of just Being.

(Let's do something about it. Poems have had rosier themes. And I don't suggest we run from what reality is. I suggest we give it a new flavor. We're threads of one fabric. Human beings tied by universal emotions. Let's lean into what we have in common. It's rational: not poetic. Let's not stand in the way of each other. Everyone's fighting their own battles. Will you ever know the half of it? Not even the quarter. 

So be kind. Listen to the story that people wish to tell you, not the stories that you create in your heads about them. Listen to the real voice. Don't create artificial instances of human beings. Be real. Authentic. Kind. Empathetic. Humble. Don't envy entitlement, and don't sympathize. There's always the other side that's hiding- it's always a coin with two sides. Success has seen failure and vice-versa. Adversity has seen progress and progress, adversity. Things may look rosy right now, but there's a meadow full of thorns where the rose grows and most of the time, when it's very bright, it was also very dark sometime in the past. We don't rant about our misgivings because that's not what human beings are made of. But this in no way means that there are people with no misgivings to rant about. I would love to share mine with you. 

In fact, I have just shared one. Indeed, I wrap them in poems so subtly that the true pain behind them is lost to everyone but me, who has experienced them. And those who know me up close. The poems are the silver lining to those clouds. They make things look happier than they are. And that's the power and poignance of poetry. Don't dismiss it as unreal. It ties pragmatism and emotion together to make sure you derive inspiration and not fear from adversity. It helps you build strength.

I wish people were poems. Oh, how I would love that. If people mentioned the harsh truths but cared enough not to let them incisor your existing wounds. Wounds only you know exist. Wounds which, in the rational world, people scoff at, because they're applying a generic lens to something that's so intricate and personal that no size can fit it perfectly.

There may be no poetry in what I'm saying, but I don't intend there to be. 

I wish people were poems :) )