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Just to get along
Lost Among Thorny Lies
How do so many lose themselves in the façade?
At the end of the essay below, you will find my spoken word reading of the poem, “Façade” — The essay is my musings… the thoughts upon which my short poem was inspired.
Lost Among Thorny Lies
We all make ourselves used to it.
We do it to “get along” — we do it to “keep the peace.”
Women, especially are told from the cradle “that’s just how things are.”
What is left after a lifetime of that chip-chip-chipping away at our self for the sake of someone else demanding it?
Both as individuals and as a species, we humans are our own worst enemies. It’s a lonely journey through life when all you feel is angry. When everyone not your tribe is suspect, no one is welcome.
Truth is not to be believed. Lies — “alternative facts” — and unquestioning certitude become your reality. No incontrovertible evidence is proof enough to shake your convictions. Only thorny lies color that fearful reality.
Life is more fearful still when we sink our selves among those thorny lies. Why do we keep accepting the pricking, ever deeper, ever more damaging? The wounds, the costs keep compounding to self.
It’s something we all do to “just get along” and “keep the peace.” We’re taught by this life “that’s just the way things are” — immutable and beyond our ability to change. I think, when that happens, a core aspect of our humanity is lost, and with it, the abilities to reason with discernment and to empathize.
Behind this façade, can we hold onto our humanity lost among a reality buried in thorny lies?
Façade
Self-convincing deceptions
We make and accept in Life
Each one pricks as a tiny cut
an almost imperceptible wound
We wound our deepest self
To choose what lie we will
Tending gardens of our hearts
As the nightingale weeps a lonely song
