Not for sweet apples
Do we peel away our skin,
Peel away the layers that once
Numbed us, but protected us.
Not for the tang of oranges
Do we become raw, open, vulnerable:
The slightest touch electrifying us,
The worst words destroying us.
Liquid joy and desperate tears
Flow from the same well:
Love, risk, hope, fears.
Pangs of love become pains of growth:
Learning, adapting, evolving,
Learning to deal with raw pain,
Agonised pasts; learning to accept our idiosyncrasies,
Our preferences.
Look now. Look how
The onion sits there in the corner:
Perfect, round, complete in itself;
We cry, we complain,
We denounce, we disdain;
But look at it:
Perfect, round and complete in itself:
Part of Earth’s fruit,
Rich in possibilities;
Not an apple, not an orange, not a flower,
Not wholesome, not pleasant, not pretty;
But perfect, round and complete in itself.
Welcome the onion,
Welcome these years,
Welcome the joy,
Welcome the risks,
The fears, the pain, the tears.
That there exist such possibilities,
That there can be such an escape
From the numbness, the indifference.
Welcome the onion,
Welcome the sting,
Welcome the depth
And variation
And toughness
And wildness of life.
Welcome!
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