Your very existence is like a hurricane, you were born at the center of warmth and love. Your heart opened to the ocean's glorious moisture like a budding rose searching for dew, but you are insatiable. You need more, you crave the touch of land. Your aura brings in people like the winds and you push them away in gusts of isolation. Clouds dance around you to protect your core and you stretch them out away from your soul as far as they will go in hopes that the winds will stay away. You beat and you thrash against the shore, maybe people will stay away from you. Maybe the wall of clouds will remain thick like wool to keep your center locked away.
You don't have to be the hurricane.
Be the Red Cross shelter bringing everyone in. Open your doors to people long before you're needed so that when they walk into your arms, relief washes over them before the hurricane's abusive oceans can. You understand that it's a temporary companionship, but the memories are a permanent fix. Prepare people daily for disasters because the rains will come and somehow we still won't be ready. Show compassion in a world that defines hatred easily. Spread your fingers across the globe because your star is the North star and we look to you for guidance.
Not many can say they've relished a moment with themselves, too many are afraid of loneliness, but not you. You've seen that darker side, you've made friends with your monsters in the darkness and just as you were getting used to having them around, someone opened up the closet for you. The light tickled your skin as endorphins raced through your brain -- you were too afraid of happiness to stay in the light. You frolicked momentarily, let the verbenas graze your thigh and you even learned to smile again. Ecstasy overwhelmed you so you retreated back to your closet and asked the monsters if they missed you, but they were gone. When you looked through the crack of the door, no one was in the light. You forced everyone away. Let your guard down, though it's easier said than done. It's time to hold onto people, don't be afraid to say "I need you" before you're watching them walk away -- grass dying beneath their feet. The strongest people aren't afraid to walk close to the hurricane, someone once walked close to you didn't they? Define courage differently -- it is not the act of facing a fear, but the act of facing yourself.
Be the person that defines empathy.
