Let Me Be

Let me be. Is it too much to ask from a fellow human being?

Let me be. Is that a boundary you crossed or I did?

Let me be. Does that mark the end of a chapter or the beginning of a new one?

Let me be. Is that a will to live or the need to survive?

Let me be. Sobbed the woman into a pillow after her husband raped her.

Let me be. Screamed the son, tearing up his literature scores to settle on engineering.

Let me be. Sighed the tired salesman to the expectant faces at home.

Let me be. Grunted the mother haggling with vendors to save a dollar.

Let me be. Cried the man who loved another man, to his neighbours.

Let me be. Yelled the man from the hospital bed, to the insurance company.

Let me be. Begged the soldier caught prisoner and tortured by the rebels.

I listened to these implorations and looked away

I heard them not as cries for solitude

I heard them not as a will to disappear.

I heard them as cries for help

I heard them as a yearning for more, for less, for clarity.

They made me say to myself “Let me be”

When you did worse than walking away.

They made me say to myself "Let me be"

When you let the silence take over till it screamed over and over.

Between you and me. To let us be. Strangers of the multitude.