Forgive and Be Kind

And if all these friends are not the young and beautiful women they portray themselves as,
If they are middle-age men in small rooms with a flickering lightbulb shining down on a yellowed keyboard,
I should hope I would love them even still,
More perhaps;
Do not scammers and catfish need love too?

What line is to be drawn between humans who deserve to be asked “How is your day today?”
And those who are thought unfit for such pleasantries?

We crush the humble cockroach beneath our feet for the way it scuttles,
Yet we gaze in awe at the crested Blue jay,
Who harasses other birds for pleasure and is known to eat their young.

We curse the darkness for lacking light,
Yet it is the sun which fades our clothing and leaves our plastics cracked and brittle.

The devil could probably have used a friend,
To talk to when the pressure was too much,
When he felt he could not live up to the ideal in his head,
When he saw the inequities and did not understand;
Have we not all betrayed and lied when we are lost?

And the sirens which called the ships to crash upon the shores,
Did they also sing sweetly to one another when the sailors were not passing through,
On their journeys to plunder other lands,
To vanquish the outcast gorgon in her tragic solitude, that powerful men might be pleased?

To love the beautiful and the familiar is our nature,
And there is a place for this love,
But our nature is fraught with errors and misdeeds,
Our judgement flawed so often and obscured by what we think we know.

I say love those who are unloved most of all.
Cast aside your judgement;
Forgive and be kind.