Taking Sides

A poem for us all

Photo by Michelle Tsang on Unsplash

The world will try to make us take sides.
But maybe you order coffee and I'll get tea.
Maybe you can have the chicken, and I'll get the fish.
Maybe you like vanilla ice cream, but I prefer chocolate,
and instead of arguing about which is the superior flavor,
we each get a dish of our choosing. And we toast
with our spoons before we dig in.
Perhaps you like summer, and I love a good snowfall,
and we find one another
in the middle of autumn. Maybe you don't want to have 
children, but you offer to babysit mine
when I need some extra help.
Maybe I don't understand the heaviness that you carry,
but I stretch my arms out to carry it for you,
if only for a little while. Maybe you are angry about 
something that you're holding onto from the past, or
something you're worried that tomorrow will bring, and
maybe I can listen to you speak your fears aloud. Perhaps 
that helps assuage your pain, just a little. And when my
kid cries, even though they're not yours, we both rush to 
figure out how to soothe them.
Because nobody likes it when a child cries.

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