> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://randalljgreene.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Start Is Me and the End Is Us
- URL: https://randalljgreene.com/the-start-is-me-and-the-end-is-us/
- Published: 2026-08-26T14:26:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T14:26:05.000Z
- Description: Walking together means listening more than speaking, confessing the truth of my own insecurity, and refusing to force my way upon the world.
- Author: Randall Greene
- Tags: Poetry

Sometimes I yearn for yesterday.  
Even though I know yesterday wasn't good,  
it was easy—at least for me.  
Back when there was so little I knew  
of what it meant to speak the truth  
and what it meant to love people like you.  
Back then I believed I knew all the answers  
and spun what I believed to be hope like it was a cancer.

That hope was a mask covering my insecurity.  
But it was easy. So simple to say  
if you weren't like me, you were wrong;  
it made me feel strong because I feared—  
or maybe I knew, but couldn't confess  
to myself or to anyone else—  
that I was a child, energetic but immature,  
trying to force my way upon this world.

The Way of Life, though, is not what I knew yesterday,  
for force is the forge where violence hardens.  
Life is freedom; life is peace; life is love  
which cannot coerce, cannot silence, cannot harm.  
The Way of Life is not easy for me, though it is right;  
it is listening more than I speak, kindness over might,  
weeding my garden before self-righteousness takes root.  
The truth of yesterday is a better me today.

## About This Poem

Walking together means listening more than speaking, confessing the truth of my own insecurity, and refusing to force my way upon the world.