Reality
Yours, Mine, … Ours
reality?
What the hell is real?
Is it perception?
Perception determines viewpoint …
What I perceive…
I usually believe
Yet I’m constantly told
To believe in what I cannot perceive.
To have faith …
… Not as good at that as I could be.
Reality?
Is it what I can see?
Touch, smell, hear?
Is reality individual?
Or is it a multitudinous collaboration?
Do we create the universe around us?
Does it create us?
Did you dream me?
Did I dream you?
Every being with the ability to perceive
Lives in a universe of their own..
Each with it’s own versions / visions …
Right, wrong, up, down..
Dreams, fears, loves, hates…
So, is yours reality?
Is mine?
What about theirs?
In someone’s reality I’m a racist piece of crap..
Why?
Because I happened to be born Caucasian.
Not that I asked to be…
I just was.
In someone’s reality I am a friend,
In another an enemy
In my wife’s I am a loving husband and partner
To some I am a writer
To some a talentless hack
In my particular slice of reality
I am a husband, father, grandfather, friend…
In another the asshole neighbor with those damn dogs…
Still, our universes are shared…
They overlap…
We have Points of contact …
At work, at school, in WalMart …
In a church or in a closet …
On the street
Alone or together
We interact …
Breathing the same air …
If I breathe in your exhalations …
Do I partake of your reality?
Do I take in part of your soul… your being?
If do, then I am a multitude
For every person with whom I have shared a space
In sixty-three years …
Across streets, cities, states, continents …
Wherever I have been people have left me a piece of them…
So I am Christian.. Buddhist…Muslim … atheist…
I am straight… gay … male… female… trans … other …
As they have joined my reality …
I too have left them a piece of me…
Hopefully it was a piece that fit well
That helped them fill in their blanks…
Even here on this platform
I share my reality with you
As I partake of a piece of yours
WE ARE our reality …
So let’s make it a good one
Otherwise we may just become …
Unreal …
About the Creator
Andrew C McDonald
Andrew McDonald was a 911 dispatcher for 30 yrs with a B.S. in Math (1985). He served as an Army officer 1985 to 1992, honorably exiting a captain.
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Keys-Andrew-C-McDonald-ebook/dp/B07VM843XL?ref_=ast_author_dp
Keep reading
More stories from Andrew C McDonald and writers in Poets and other communities.
Day 4 of Quitting
If this is how sobriety feels, maybe it’s better to go through life a little buzzed… this, along with other hits like, I want to kill myself, I wish I was dead, and I’m going to throw myself off a bridge have been the only thoughts on rotation these past few days. I promise myself that if, in a month, I still feel like this (‘this’ meaning despondent, full of rage, and simultaneously numb) I can go back to smoking. Until mid-February though? Nicotine is off the table.
By sleepy drafts5 days ago in Longevity
Comments (3)
That picture is so good, I wasn't sure your piece could live up to it BUT IT DID
So many details and then the simplicity in your close was beautiful!
Awww, I love how our realities are shared here. Your poem was so deep and beautiful!