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.