I am not the first person you loved (by Clementine von Radics)

I am not the first person you loved.

You are not the first person I looked at

with a mouthful of forevers. We

have both known loss like the sharp edges

of a knife. We have both lived with lips

more scar tissue than skin. Our love came

unannounced in the middle of the night.

Our love came when we'd given up

on asking love to come. I think

that has to be part

of its miracle.

This is how we heal.

I will kiss you like forgiveness. You

will hold me like I'm hope. Our arms

will bandage and we will press promises

between us like flowers in a book.

I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat

on your skin. I will write novels to the scar

of your nose. I will write a dictionary

of all the words I have used trying

to describe the way it feels to have finally,

finally found you.

And I will not be afraid

of your scars.

I know sometimes

it's still hard to let me see you

in all your cracked perfection,

but please know:

whether it's the days you burn

more brilliant than the sun

or the nights you collapse into my lap

your body broken into a thousand questions,

you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I will love you when you are a still day.

I will love you when you are a hurricane.

Clementine von Radics

Home, by Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

Warsan Shire

The lenses in which we see (by John Chordy Teagle)

A relationship is how you see someone.

It is sight. It is seeing someone in a certain light. Certain cameras see different spectrums of light. Visible, ultraviolet, infrared and so on.

If you use a certain lens, you are going to see them in that particular spectrum that is negative. It will be hard to see them any other way.

If you use a different lens that is in the positive spectrum, you are more likely to over look their negatives attributes.

Love has its own lens. You will see the positive and the negative. It will allow you to understand how that individual acts and their intent of their actions. When we become transparent to the ones we love and have transparency with the ones we love, we understand that we all have greatness and imperfections.

When you have clarity and understanding, you will see the positive and the negative of that individual in one light. This monochromatic lens renders you colorblind. Yes, love is blind.

What lens are you using when you look at someone?

~ John Chordy Teagle