When I reflect back on past times with you
I don't get choked up on hurt like I used to.
Rather, I smile similes of what joy might feel like
And turn laughter into metaphors, I don't really know what for, but I imagine that you are happy.

When I reflect back on past times with you
I try to remember what it meant to me,
The feeling of comfort in a crowded room where everyone is screaming at me,
I wonder how long I ignored them at the expense of selling my weaknesses for your soul that doesn't reflect anything back anymore.

I cannot recollect all the memories because I burnt most of them the same way you set our love on fire, see I squeezed myself onto the flame like gasoline in an open field, I used my bones as match sticks, and lit them all simultaneously, I turned myself to ash, a cremation of good will and broken girls who fell in love with broken guys, see I burned for all of us.

When I reflect back on past times with you,
The remains of my heart emulate something close to beating, close to life, but our past times were just moments that passed us by a little too soon, who was I to know that you had no intent of staying, I wouldn't have built this home, a little too big for only me to occupy.

When I reflect back on past times with you,
I find my self in a state of constant whiplash, I am jetlagged from the high you gave me, I am not me without you.

So when I reflect back on past times without you,
I try not to cry because most of my life I spent with you, opening up, in more ways than one but you treated me like a Jack in the box, I was a joke to you.
I try to remember what my name sounds like when it's not you calling it, it doesn't feel the same because you gave meaning to the language that only you and I spoke. Now I am deaf to anything that isn't you.

When I reflect back on past times without you,
You are still there. You always were, even before.

Or should I say: an Ode to You?
Does it make any difference? Really?
Let’s start again, let’s start by saying
In’Lak’ech Ala K’in
You are another Me. I am another You.
For that’s what’s so unique
about being Human.
We are the Same.
BECAUSE we are not.
We were created equal
BECAUSE we were all created different
with this raging desire inside
of being who we are
who we truly are
each one of us
billions and billions of versions
of creatures who can say I am
who want to know who I am
who want to define it
be being just like X
and by being dislike Y

Unlike the flower, the tree, the fish,
the animals, the mountains, the oceans
that are what they are,
we reflect.
We reflect about who we are,
We reflect about our world.
I reflect about who you are,
and I reflect who you are.
You reflect who I am.
BECAUSE on this or that, we are the same,
look the same, feel the same, believe the same.
BECAUSE in this or that we are different,
look different, feel different, believe different.
Billions and billions of reflections
billions and billions of versions
of being Human.

This comes with great responsibility.
For we need one thing
to bring this raging desire to reality:
we need to honour our differences,
we need to respect them.
From two perspectives, in fact:
from the selfish perspective
for if I want to truly be me
I need the freedom to fully express
who I really am
so I cannot allow you or another version of the human being
to shrink my universe of possibilities.
From the altruistic perspective, too.
For to define who I am
I need you, every single version of you,
to fully express who you are
in order to reflect in all it’s glory
who I am.

The more I love who you are
the more I love your differences
the more I honour you as not me
the more I can become who I am
the more I can see who I am
because you reflect it so well
just the way you are.
Billions of you.

Hence any man, woman or child
who endangers the difference
of another man, woman or child
is in fact destroying a reflection of his or her own uniqueness.
Belittle the options you allow another human being,
and you belittle your own self and your own glance.

That is how we are all connected.
Through the most fundamental right of being different.
That is how we are all equal.

BECAUSE I am not you and you are not me,
we are the same.

In La’kech Ala K’in
An Ode to You.

Or should I say:
an Ode to Me.


Marie-Hélène de Cannière, © 2016