Sometimes I feel the need to take a break from the novel writing and fiction work to express my thoughts through verse. That’s when a poem usually takes center-stage. And I blog on a day I wouldn’t usually be on here.
This is a hard time for even the most positive among us, and that includes me. I’m struggling today. And that’s never an easy thing for me to admit. But our worst days are sometimes better than someone’s best days. It’s hard to comprehend what another person is thinking, feeling, and experiencing. We live in a divided country. A divided world. And often times, divided families. I wonder what would happen if we realize our differences can bring us closer? We’re all hurting in one way or other. We don’t need to experience this alone. We don’t need to be divided as we cower in our homes or trample city streets. If we just communicate, love, and embrace, maybe we can become understood. Please enjoy the poem I wrote today on this topic, and let me know your own thoughts on this subject.
You Wouldn’t Understand by Laura Gibson Kudey
One look at me, and people flee
Not physically, but mentally
I see it in their posture
A disgust all their own
But you wouldn’t understand
Childless and barren
I’ve been told to procreate
You say motherhood completes me
While I cuddle in the darkness
But you wouldn’t understand
My children are wailing
Tearing and pulling my arms
I’m too tired to explain
Yet you gawk at me all the same
But you wouldn’t understand.
The rooms are all vacant
My nest is abandoned
No one calls or writes
I’m ashamed of my own fate
But you wouldn’t understand
I’m lavished in green
Hung by lipstick and Prada
A shell of the hollow man
Called red instead of blue
But you wouldn’t understand
I’ve lived and breathed war
Nightmares and camouflage
Protests and blue zones
A savior to the rest
But you wouldn’t understand
Black, white, red, and blue,
Rich, poor, and in-between
Lonely, crowded, found, and forgotten
Each bleeding the same
But you wouldn’t understand
Consumed in your bubbles
Your life so different, not better
No one comprehends
Which life, which color, must matter
But you wouldn’t understand.
Laura K. Ito 