Poem : What's the Problem?

You asked me not to judge you.

What a bizarre predicament.

“Don’t judge me” . . often said

As if behind the words

Lies meaning like weighted lead;

“Don’t you dare judge me,

You don’t know,

My life’s so hard,

You don’t know

What it’s like being me.

How can you know?

You’ve never been me”

Et Cetera . . . listen

I’m your friend and I’m here,

Let me give you some advice.
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Firstly, don’t forget you know me

As little or as much as I know you.

We only have a working knowledge

Of ourselves and ‘the other’,

The ‘I’ and the ‘you’.

With this limited knowledge

We fashion the ‘us’ and the ‘them’,

The ‘others’ for our world.

Secondly, forget how worldly wise

You are, or how far you have reached,

Or how many trails you can trace.

In the realm of your own mind is

Your only place,

That limitless but bounded space,

Where you can know what’s going on.
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As to what the others see,

Welcome people to judge you.

Live your life so you can be

Sure of yourself and your actions.

Remember others in this and

You’ll find their judgement will

Be often favourable.

Take the criticism.

Appreciate well-founded criticism.

But don’t change until you feel you have to.

Until you judge that it is necessary.

Not when someone else takes issue,

With something you have said or done.

Without, grasping the overall picture,

Without, knowing what’s really going on.
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We all judge all the time.

Whether we study or work,

Entertain or perform,

People have to judge us.

Our audiences judge us,

We judge each other

On the limited knowledge

We have of one another.

On appearances, conversations

And the attitudes that

We suppose people hold

Because of the way we see them act.

We do this because we have to.

To make sense of the world to survive.

No-one really knows what’s going on.
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I think the problem is

That you see yourself,

Through my eyes,

Forgetting

I know as little as you

– Cam, 2009