After writing this post, I redrafted a poem from a couple of years ago (something I’m meaning to do with a lot of poems). The act of kindness described in this post made me think of a workshop with Deanna Rodger, where the prompt “what’s the kindest thing you’ve done?” inspired an earlier draft of the poem below. Let me know what you think.
The last kind thing I did was spending
money on something I had no interest in.
I did that for someone else.
Thinking about kindness now,
it’s tied up to money somehow:
an exchange. A smart black suit,
food and bills. After a month
I wanted to raise money for charity,
wanted to run further than I’d been before.
Lately, I’ve felt tension in my back;
weekends and 9-5s do not line up.
Because we all need money, don’t we?
And so it seems, I want my own
gratification more than I want
to help move things forward from this pain.
Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer. 