Unappreciated Kindness

I set boundaries and built walls so that no one could reach the shattered pieces of my soul, then you came and I let you decipher me.

I slowly let those boundaries vanish in the hope that you would put those shattered pieces together, but you gave me nothing more than a curse, a curse that’s left with no hope. Now I am so hollow that I am scared to look within.

I changed who I was because you told me that people didn’t appreciate my kindness. I was entitled to have courage and be kind and you told me that before I really knew what kindness was, I should lose and sacrifice some things in life, and so I lost and sacrificed the closest people I relied on.

You forced me to feel the future dissolve in a moment, like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hands, what you counted and carefully saved, all must go, you said, so I may know how desolated the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How I can ride and ride thinking the bus will stop, and the passengers eating maize and chicken staring out the window forever, and just like them, my people wait, forever.

You told me that before I learn the tender gravity of kindness, I must travel where the Indian in the white poncho lies dead by the side of the road, and see how it could be me.

You taught me what it was like, and how it felt to lose, then you showed me who I wanted to be, and who I was not, and then you ticked every box and drew a line, a line that indicated things I will never get back and accomplish in life, because you called me the unkind worthless mistress.

From that moment I knew deep in my heart that you were not mine to begin with, and not to end with, although you looked like everything I wanted. The thought of you every day, not in a good way, kept me wondering if I was ever good enough.

If there was ever one thing in life I have done for you, it was to be kind enough to stick with you even when others felt like you were a burden, even your own parents. When I gave you my all, it never came with strings. I never kept track of what you owed me. When I gave you everything, I chose to do so without ulterior motives. I gave because I was genuine. I gave because I knew what it felt like to be without, to long for and to be ignored, to speak and not be heard, to care for and have nothing returned.

It was because I knew the value in what I had in my heart, and I refused to let the world stop me from sharing that, but when you started taking my kindness for weakness, I accepted that you would never appreciate my sincerity. I respected and appreciated your kindness. I admired it without cause, or reason, or doubt. I admired your kindness to the edge of what my soul could endure and loved you just a little bit more. I admired your kindness beyond measures, beyond hope and all sense of rationality.

I admired your kindness until you took mine for weakness, until it ruined me and like an ancient temple, I stood abandoned and forgotten before finally caving under the sheer weight of time. And in the end, it changed nothing, all that respect and love. For here I was dying for you until my spirit was weary. And there you were, living your life blissfully unaware.

Tell us: What does kindness mean to you?