Selves.

"I go through phases. 

Some days I feel like the person I’m supposed to be, 

and then some days I turn into no one at all. 

There is both me and my silhouette. 

I hope that on the days you find me 

and all I am are darkened lines, 

you still are willing to be near me."

vulnerability

first, i cannot speak for all women
or claim a united voice,
i can only tell you my truth.

and my truth is this:
a man who is kind,
a man who listens,
a man who is vulnerable and honest,
that is the man i want to make me weak in the knees.

i can tell you that to see a man vulnerable is, at first, a scary thing.
it is scary in a way that is unnerving, unfamiliar, disruptive.
and that is on me.

the intensity of having someone be completely authentic
is unsettling because it forces acknowledgement of this truth:
in order for us to tolerate imperfection and vulnerability in other people,
we have to be able to accept what is imperfect in ourselves.

the human condition

"The human condition and social condition change.
What is the fundamental principle of the new testament?
It is one of universal love!
Loving your fellow man.
And if we get obsessed with a particular definition of that through a form of sexuality,
 then i think we're missing the centrality of what the gospel -
whether you call it a social gospel or personal gospel or a spiritual gospel - is all about.
Therefore, I go back to my question:
If you think homosexuality is an unnatural condition, then frankly, I cannot agree with you
based on any element of the signs.
And therefore if a person's sexuality is as they are made, you got to ask the second question:
Should therefore their loving relationships be legally recognized?
And the conclusion I've reached is, They should!

Before returning to the prime ministership, I wrote an essay and put it on the Internet
so everyone would know why I changed my position, the reasons for it
and it was the product of some many, many months and years of reflection.
In good Christian conscience.

--Kevin Rudd,
Australia's prime minister

the invitation

it doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. 

i want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, 

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals 

or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. 

i want to know if you can sit with pain, 

mine or your own, 

without moving 

to hide it or fade it, or fix it.