What is too much to ask?

What is too much to ask?

Is it too much to ask for kindness?

For honesty?

For mercy?

Is it too much to ask to be able to walk into school unafraid of criticisms?

For a smile after a long day?

For a hug when I feel sad?

Is it too much to ask for generosity, for grace?

Is it too much to ask for those who defend us to pause and think before shooting?

Is it too much to ask for you to embrace the differences between us, rather than letting them divide us?

These shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

For common human courtesy, from and for a globe of people, nations and countries standing together, reluctant to conform to your standards of hatred.

It should not be too much to ask for you to learn their names, for you to acknowledge them with a smile, for you to treat them like human beings.

These things we teach toddlers:

Manners, courtesies, kindness,

All fading away over the years.

But it will not matter.

When you also teach hatred and prejudice, poor manners do not matter.

We are a crumbling society.

Any mortality within us, everything setting us apart as human, has evaporated and been replaced.

Replaced with your cruel words, with your unconcealed snickers, with your callous sneers.

Replaced with your racism, your hatred, your skewed perspective of justice.

Your contribution to the desolation of this world, suppressing the humane.

Your words, overshadowing any attempts of the kind to compensate for your place in this puzzle of compassion.

And I do not deny my part as an accomplice to this atrocity, this murder of humanity.

Because I have messed up.

I have been harsh.

I have been inconsiderate.

I have been a monster in the form of a human.

But I try.

I try to be kind, to be compassionate. I try to love the insufferable and recognize the forgotten.

Because to loathe and be indifferent toward others is a crime, one we are all guilty of.

I was never quiet about this, but now I am deafening.

Reject this hostility,

Spurn the alienation of your peers!

Be kind.

Do not claim hatred in the name of a religion built out of love.

Hating and judging, the exact opposite of what you were called to be.

Do not defend your contribution as being insignificant!

Because you matter, and your actions matter.

What you do and say sends ripples throughout the lives of your peers, throughout the community you belong to.

The consequences of what you deem insignificant can be detrimental to them.

Have you ever stopped and wondered how your actions affect them?

What they expect and want from you?

What they are asking of you?

If you listen, they are begging for mercy, forgiveness, kindness.

And so I implore of you to be kind.

It is not too much to ask for you to consider your reflection in the lives of those you meet.