Stranger

Big kid. Little kid.
The sparks fly.

That primordial instinct
Batters into my spinal cord
When the fire approaches
Run away from the heat

It’s just a little warm
There’s worse
Maybe he’ll just be burned
Face singed off
It’s not like he’d die
Just get scarred

Why risk it?

But maybe the fire shouldn’t have come to him
Wrong place, wrong time

Or wrong person?

Maybe he needs to get stronger
He needs an experience like this
Maybe he just needs to learn
His place in society
You don’t try to be who you aren’t

But I’m not sure
And who has the authority anyway
To say one should be burned
And another saved?
Who but the most evil
Can differentiate between evils?

When I walk away
To the mirror,
All I’ll be able to see is that stranger
Not the one of whose virtue I am unsure
And lack the courage to defend,
But the one of whose dignity I know is gone
And cannot be restored again.