A few years ago, one person, simply by being themselves, opened my eyes to a lifelong habit and made me think. I started a poem that year; I finished it this month.

On the bookshelves of my mind
sit all the people I have known,
classified by a system I derived from
what my mother said,
what my father did,
and what my grandmother thought
as she fell asleep each night.

By warm or aloof,
crotchety or kind,
quick or slow,
have I sorted them –

content with the little I knew of what lies inside,
anxious to know what to think, how to feel,
who to turn to, what to do next.

Age and accent, how wiry the hair is,
and every convenient category
swell my system to keep life easy,

but first, escaped by no one, is
Male or Female –  
my essential key to order,
to thinking that I know.

Until, that is, I met one person who reminded me of
a girl I sat next to in science class,         
      a boy who played flute in the high school orchestra,
      a woman who directed a play I had a role in, and
      a man I told my secrets to for sixty dollars an hour.

Confusion has threatened my well-ordered system and
doubts of its merits haunt each pause in my day.
Shall I clear off the shelves and burn them to the ground,
leaving no categories, no certainty, no knowing?
But how shall I start this cataclysmic fire
and how would I live among the ashes?

Years pass, the answer comes:
Add no one to the shelves but take those who are there
and hold them up to the light — high up —
for when I truly see, I am free
and I set them loose
like butterflies.

Among the things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving season, I count you, my readers. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts with you.