We Grow our Hearts

I want to do something for someone else.
I grew up with other messages:
Be strong, be smart, be separate.
Generous with time, with attention?
Didn’t see it, never heard of it.

Feels strange to say, fearful:
I want to do something for someone else.
What would they think,
those past teachers of self-sufficiency?
That I am giving away my independence?

What a surprise, finding out
my own old rules. And about time.
I’ve been kind along the way by accident,
or when it suited the way I see myself.
But the directive to stay apart was hidden.

What good, what furtherance, generosity?
The use I recall from childhood
was to buy a Pagan Baby’s Catholic baptism
in far-off racist missions.
I want to do something for someone else,

Not for points, or a year off Purgatory,
but because we humans interlock our merits.
I want to do something for someone else.
We’re a communal species, we grow our hearts
when someone next to us shows how.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026