In light of current socio-political events, I present you, Toxic Empathy. (Hint: It’s not what you think.)
“I am your deity.
You’ll never be free of me.
Truth is what I say it is.
I demand you say it is.
Where’s your empathy?
My feelings trump your rationality.”
But I want you to know,
I want to unzip you and climb inside you.
I’ll do almost anything to know you,
short of giving you the keys to drive drunk
with hate on the highway of my religion.
To love is to show emotion.
But it also calls her out of her self-destruction.
Why can’t we stop our default reactions,
lobbing Molotov cocktails at each other’s social media posts?
I think I know the answer.
Proximity has evaded us like cancer.
Let’s get out from behind these screens
and sit down across from each other.
I know a great coffee shop
that serves warm pistachio croissants and horchata lattes.
You have a story to tell,
a story composed of victories and tragedies,
good deeds and bad,
similar to mine.
What we need is to be reminded
that we’re all sores
waiting to be touched and healed
in the mouth of time.