All the Way Home - Oct 8 2021

 

All the Way Home

Oct 8 2021

Please and thank you.

Don't talk to strangers.

Look before you cross.

Our mothers taught us well.

To be civilized

wary

cautious.

But waiting too long in line

I caught her eye,

and it may have been a compliment

or clever comment

or conversation starter

as commonplace as the weather,

but whatever it was, off we went

talking like old friends

and it wasn't scary at all.

How long

have I been scowling through the world,

elbows sharpened

shoulders hunched

back tense,

expecting the worst?

The news, which is rarely good, doesn't help.

I pocketed her number when we were done,

and feeling triumphant, stepped off the curb

too distracted to bother looking.

But traffic stopped for me

and no one honked or swore.

So I waved my thanks

and carried on,

smiling all the way home.

I'm a bit of a news junkie. The journalistic ethos of “if it bleeds, it leads” is true. So the media give a distorted view of the world: a place of ubiquitous threat, greed, and calamity. And while my immersion has radicalized me politically (a good thing, I would say), it has also left me cynical misanthropic, despondent, and nihilistic.

This poem is an intentional antidote to that negativity. Because on a level of personal interaction, this ominous worldview is often contradicted. Which is a healthy corrective. And even though I mostly fail at it, I repeatedly try to remind myself of this: that most people are basically good. (And the fact that I had a lot of trouble committing to that last statement attests to just how often and easily I do indeed fail!)