What do you see when you close your eyes?
Do you see love?
Do you see pain?
Do you see a memory of a lifelong passed?
I don’t see these things.
I see a divide.
I see the people who I know.
I see the people who I accept.
I see the people who I call my friends.
But they don’t see me.
They see many things.
My being never comes to mind.
I laugh at them.
I scoff at them.
I wish I could be them.
The ones who come to their minds.
Not kinder than me.
Not smarter than me.
Not different than me.
My title is the same.
I am said to be there friend.
All I am told says it is true.
But the words are different.
The faces are different.
The people are all but the same.
I see their language.
I attempt to speak it.
But the language I know always emerges.
The divide I see is always there and they cross away as I draw near.
I am their friend.
My title is such
while my being is still deemed a menace.