The things he wanted most from her,
She didn’t know to give –
The life she had imagined,
He in no way tried to live

In arguments and posturing,
They spent their days & nights –
In fruitless tiny bickerings
That grew to full-blown fights

But they are not alone in this
We see it every day;
That we confuse these several things
That should help point our way

There are the facts, what people do,
That’s where we’re s’posed to start;
There’s how we feel about it,
The reactions of our heart;

Then there’re the stories we make up
About why others do
The things they do – we read their thoughts,
Or at least, pretend to

For that’s where listening comes in –
Not knowing, root to stem,
That oft when others thwart our wills
That it makes sense to them

What sense it makes we have to hear
To listen intently –
Or else we’ll mischaracterize
And we will never see.

If your a politician, this is fine,
It’s what you do –
Deliberately misunderstand
To frame a “greater you” —

But in the real world we should try
To listen when we can;
With something like respect, as though
Each woman or each man

Has their own right to feelings that
Are just as strong and real —
So long as they don’t twist the facts
Or tell us how to feel.

But when I go out in the world
I feel, most times, despair;
For no one listens. Nobody.
It’s all just so much air

So like my friends who always fight,
We’re constantly at war;
And issue our invective
Though I’m not quite sure what for

For nobody is listening
Who might not yet agree;
And we grow more self-righteous in
Our lack
Of empathy