They accept each other
the way they are.

Or—

he thinks she knows
what will make him happy,
and—

he is angry
that she
thinks she knows
what he wants.

She is angry
that he thinks
she thinks
she knows.

He says
she wants him to lose
his sense of self—
to be a part of her
to be a part
of her
life.

And this makes her mad.

She thinks
he should know—
that she loves him
just the way he is.

But—

he is angry
that she doesn't know
she is telling him
how to be different.

And—
he is angry
that she thinks
she knows
what is best
for him.

She is angry
that he thinks
she knows
what will make him
different—

when she accepts him
just the way
he is.

She is angry
because
he should know
she would never
try to change him.

They are angry
because they
don't know
what they
should know
about each other.

They are angry
because they think
neither of them
know the true intentions
of each other.

But it doesn't matter
what you intended
to say or do—
it only matters
what I think I heard
you say,
what you think
you heard
me say—

to you.

Just act naturally!

Naturally, I am learning—
just what to do.
Naturally.

Do people learn, naturally,
how to act—
natural?

I must learn social skills,
so I will know
what to do, naturally,
when I want to act—

naturally.

Naturally, I want to act—
naturally.

To act on my feelings,
but not too quickly.

I have to know
what I really feel,
so I’ll know what I want.

And so I’ll act naturally,
without having to stop
and think—
about what I feel
I want.

I want to feel
like I am acting
naturally.

I want to feel
that I know
what I want—
so I won’t have to think
about what I feel
I want.

Or think—

about how to best
act naturally.

People learn these things—
naturally.

We're playing a game.

Does everyone know
we're playing a game?

Does everyone like the game?

If you play the game,
it shows you care—
when you first meet people
in a social situation.

I need you to play the game.

Because I’m nervous,
and the game helps me feel relaxed—
when we play the game.

And it shows you care—
enough
to play the game
with me—
until we know each other.

But I don’t even know you.

Wouldn’t it be fake
to act like I care about you
by playing a game
with you
in this social situation
that helps me feel more relaxed?

Don’t be so serious.

Just play the game.

The best relationships
begin—
not with two people
who understand,
but with two people
who do not.

They think they do.
They try.

But we do not fully know
what the other knows.

We cannot.

Not yet.

I understand
your experience
only when
you tell me
what I do not know.

Because I cannot
know it as you do.

And so, I listen.

Without assumptions.
Without interruption.
Without shaping your story
into my own.

I do not rush to understand.
I wait,
I wonder,
I let you show me.

And somehow—
between the words,
between the silences,
between what is said
and what is left unsaid—
we connect.

I want to understand.

"How can you understand
what it is like to be a woman?"

Okay—
I wish I could say
I have had the experience
of being a woman.

That’s absurd.
That’s bizarre.

I know.

But isn’t that why we’re talking?
To help me understand
what you’ve felt,
what you’ve lived,
what you want me to know?

You said
there are things I cannot understand—
and you were right.

No one truly understands
any experience
except their own.

And yet—
someone can explain,
someone can share,
someone can try
to help me understand
what I cannot understand.

I always begin with this:
I do not understand.

Every experience
in our lives
shapes the next.

"I don’t understand," she says.

"Neither do I."
"So, let’s talk."

"But you don’t understand."

"Yes, I know."

Does it bother you
that I tell you
I don’t understand?

I understand
that you understand
that I don’t understand
that you
don’t think
I understand.

But still—
I listen.

I love you loving me.
You love me loving you.

I love you loving me—
loving you—
loving me.

You love me loving you—
loving me—
loving you.

I am happy that you love me.
But unhappy if you don’t.

I think—
I don’t need you to love me
for me to love myself.

And yet,
I love you
loving me—
and us,
loving each other.

She loves me.
I feel good.

I was happy—
(a little, somewhat…
in a different way)
before she loved me.

So maybe,
I don’t need her love.

She is angry that I
don’t need her love.

He is angry
that she is angry
that he doesn’t need her love—

because she should know—
you have to love yourself
before anyone can love you.

…Or something like that.

I didn’t love you loving me,
before you started loving me.

If you stopped loving me,
I would not be happy.

But I was happy—
(theoretically)—
before you loved me.

And that is how you could love me.

Right?

You wouldn’t love me
if I didn’t love me.
But we would be unhappy
without our love.

Wouldn’t we?

Never assume.

I do not want you to "get me."
That would mean
you have already decided
who I am.

I love that
you do not understand me.
And I do not understand you.

We discovered each other—
not through knowing,
but through not knowing.

We understood
because we did not
assume.

Person 1:
"You cannot possibly
understand me—
or what I have experienced."

Person 2:
"You cannot possibly
understand me—
or what I have experienced."

And yet—

Together,
we understand.

"My job is not
to make you happy,"
says Leticia, the therapist
whose name means
full of joy.

I don’t understand.

Then what is your job?
What are we working toward?
What is therapy for
if not to create something
other than depression?

Feelings change.
Be mindful.
Observe.
Describe.
Participate.

Move away
from thinking about what is happening.
Be present.

But—

I notice sadness.
I want to notice happiness.

Is that not a goal?

"You were held back
by thoughts about the situation."

But what if I am held back
by the situation itself?

Consider this.

I once assessed
why a woman needed
a psych evaluation.

"I am here because
I am too happy," she said.

"That is strange, isn’t it?" I asked.

Surely, there was more
to her story.

Or consider Lucia.
Lucia is 14.

Asked when she remembers
being happy,
she cannot remember
such a time.

I suspect Major Depression.
I suggest therapy,
so she can feel happy.

What is your role, Leticia?
Let’s talk about goals.

Because if I asked you—
"Are you happy?"
your answer would
forever change,
according to your philosophy.

But I—

I have known a time
when I was happy.

A time when
happiness lived in me—
not fleeting,
not conditional,
not something to simply observe
and let pass.

A time when,
despite transient moments of sadness,
I was still happy at my core.

And yet—

Even then,
out of habit,
I told the person I loved,
"I am depressed."

Words that no longer fit me.
Words that once defined me.
Words that could hurt her—
make her believe
she brought me no happiness.

But happiness had changed me.
It lived inside me.
It did not deny sadness.
It did not erase struggle.

And yet,
it remained.

I am thinking
about what I am feeling.

These feelings—
intense, passionate,
real.

I need to get in touch
with my feelings.
Be in the moment.

But my mind—
always analyzing,
always thinking
about feeling,
instead of just feeling.

Let me think about
how I can stop thinking
about how to get
out of my head
and into the moment.

I keep thinking.
And thinking.

About why
I can’t just be—
spontaneous,
emotional,
filled with awe.

I remember—
I was in awe.

It feels like
it just happened.

I remember
the feeling
of being in awe.

But remembering
isn’t the same
as being.

You say
you understand me.

But how can you?

I barely understand myself.

And yet,
I want you to understand me.

But if you do,
does that mean
you’ve already decided
who I am?

Or are you still listening?

I say,
"You don’t understand."

You say,
"I do."

I say,
"Then tell me what I mean."

You do.

And I say,
"No, that’s not it."

You say,
"Then tell me."

I try.

But words shift,
meaning bends,
and what I thought I knew
is now uncertain.

So, I say—
"You don’t understand."

And maybe,
that’s the only way
to truly understand.

I think about experiences
that are impossible for me
to experience.

I understand
what you said
you understand.

You understand
what you heard me say—
when I told you
what I understand.

We misunderstand each other
often.

I like when we misunderstand.
When we talk about it.
When misunderstanding
becomes a way
to understand.

"How dare you say,
‘I understand.’"

"Isn’t that what you wanted?"

You confuse me.

I want you to know
that you don’t understand me.

I want you to ask me
to explain
what I understand—
so I can understand
what I understand,
so you can hear me
tell you
what I understand,
so you can understand
what I understand.

Do you understand?

I want you.

My feelings are natural.
They grew on their own,
without intention.

And naturally—
I want you
to feel the same.

To want me,
as I want you.

To feel it evolve,
without effort,
without force,
without doubt.

I hunger for you
to want me—
naturally.

Everything in the way
you look at me,
the way your body leans closer,
the way your breath slows—
says it’s natural.

And yet—

you wait.

Some look to a God.
They say our endless striving
to fill the emptiness within
is misguided—
because only God
can fill the void inside.

But—

Stop looking for meaning.
There is none.

It is not within.
It is not without.

Can a newborn baby
love itself into existence?
Does it exist
before it knows itself?
Without language,
without thought—
is it truly real?

There is nothing outside.
There is nothing inside.

There is—

Nothing.

I am in a park,
somewhere.

I see a bird,
a black swan
with green markings—
an elaborate, abstract pattern.

I turn away.
When I look back,
the bird is gone.

In its place—
a beautiful black woman.

I am drawn to her,
instantly,
without hesitation.

She approaches,
her eyes knowing.

"You act as if you
do not know me."

"Should I?"

"I have always been part of you.
The source of your comfort,
what you have sought
to find."

"Come with me,"
she says.

And I follow—

as light merges with light,
nothing lost,
nothing cast back in shadow.

Commentary:

This was a dream I had decades ago, partially during hypnosis. At the time, I wasn’t sure why it stayed with me, but now I realize it was revealing something I hadn’t fully questioned before.

As I was thinking about sharing this poem, I noticed a decorative black bird outside a house and thought, aren’t most swans white? That small moment led me to reflect on how deeply language and perception shape what we see as beautiful, valued, and familiar.

Western culture has long associated blackness with negativity, invisibility, or being "less than." The term “black sheep” carries an undeserved stigma. And yet, in my dream—without hesitation, without doubt—what I saw was warmth, beauty, and familiarity.

Why is that?

Why does society condition us to overlook what is naturally beautiful, what is already there?

And why—if culture has ingrained these biases so deeply—did I instinctively feel something so different at my core?

I’ve read about these biases in social psychology research, I’ve heard them in conversations, and I know how powerfully they shape perception. But if so much of society operates under this framework—why did my subconscious reject it so completely?

Psychologically, warmth is associated with comfort—skin against skin, touch, presence. White, in some contexts, represents coldness, sickness, or sterility (white as a sheet), while darker skin often feels physically warmer to the touch.

But do most people notice this?

Or does society teach us to ignore, to devalue, to assume something else?

This dream forced me to confront how instinct and cultural conditioning are often at odds. While I had been taught one narrative, my deepest self saw something different—something true.

Maybe this is an invitation for others to ask themselves:

What have I been taught to see? And what might I truly recognize—if I let myself?

Samantha asks Darrin,
"Are you happy?"

Darrin says,
"I have a beautiful wife,
a beautiful daughter,
a nice home, a great job…
Yes, I am happy."

Darrin believes Sam loves him.
But is he happy because Sam loves him
or because he loves Sam?

Earlier, he was stressed—
a demand from work,
pressure from his job.

So, does his job make him happy?
Or does his job only make him happy
because of the love of Sam,
his love for Sam,
and his love for Tabitha?

But Darrin doesn’t need Tabitha
to love him.
She is too young
to love in a way he would notice.

They say you shouldn’t need a relationship
to be happy.

They say you must first love yourself.
That you must already be happy.
That no relationship
can give you
what you don’t already have.

If that’s true,

then would Darrin still be happy
without Sam?
Would Sam still be happy
without Darrin?

Could they lose each other
and be just as fulfilled?

Darrin was happy before he met Sam.
But this happiness is different.
This happiness is more.

Darrin cannot say
that life would be just as good
without their love.

Would Sam say the same?

If they lost each other,
wouldn’t they grieve?
Wouldn’t they ache?
Wouldn’t they know, undeniably,
that what they had
was greater
than what they were alone?

Since Darrin loves Sam,
and since Darrin believes
that Sam loves him,
and since Sam believes
that Darrin loves her,

then neither must have needed
to be in a relationship to be happy.

And yet—

if they lost their love,
would they be happy?

Wouldn’t that happiness—
the happiness they were told
had to exist independently—
collapse under grief?

Then was it ever separate at all?

What is the meaning
of Sam’s love for Darrin?
What is the meaning
of Darrin’s love for Sam?

What is the meaning of each’s love
for themselves?

What is the meaning of happiness?

What is the meaning of life?

God—
(or gods, or something else entirely?)—
laughs
at mankind’s folly.

If the sacred
is beyond all things,
could it be reduced
to books,
to ink,
to words?

A few thousand years—
a fleeting breath
in all that is,
or ever was,
or ever will be.

Would it
(or they, or nothing at all?)
try to explain
in ways we could understand?

And would we understand?

Were we right?
Were we wrong?

Or is it both,
or neither,
or something else entirely?

Would the ones
who question—
monks, priests, theologians,
imams, rabbis—
take the truth
and carve it into their own shapes?

Would they listen—
and hear only
what they have always known?

And when the whisper comes,
soft as silence,
it will tell them all—

Yes.

How do you respond
to the absurd?

How do intelligent people—
repeat,
like ditto-heads,
words they heard,
hoping to shut down
those who disagree?

They have forgotten
even the meaning of the word—
truth.

“You don’t like what he says
because you know it’s true?”

What is it?

It is a true opinion—
and so, we each have
true opinions,
containing different
ideas,
preferences,
values,
internal perceptions.

I get truth
from the weather report—
temperature,
cloudiness,
wind or calm.

And yet—

one says,
"it’s too warm."
another,
"it’s too cool."

Those are true perceptions.

But where we disagree—
there is subjectivity:
preferences,
values,
morals.

Are you saying
I am—
immoral?

My response was:

Are you saying—
"I am immoral?"

You can speak—
your beliefs,
your values,
your ideas—
all subjective.

And I can do the same.

We are both—

sharing true opinions,
true values,
true beliefs,
true perceptions.

But that doesn’t make them
Truth.