Shawn L. Bird

We need to be respectful

of tender psyches, mental illness,

all the agonies of existence.

We need to be respectful

of our own tenderness

and pained existence.

When being gentle of their tender troubles,

makes aches worse for ourselves,

who needs to respect whom?

Draw battle lines,

or at least find a bastion

against cries

calling you to your destruction,

dragging you to drown in the moat of their fragility.

Be respectful of your own precious sanity.