My Favorite People 

My favorite people are the ones 

who do what they say, 

because sometimes 

standing behind your word 

is a mountain 

that crumbles over your loyalty 

before you can salvage your own heart, 

and now it is smashed dirty; 

an unrecognizable promise 

identifying as nothing more than a lie. 

My favorite people 

are the ones who aren’t afraid 

to strip it down to the bare-boned bravery 

gone extinct, and stand tall 

even if it means standing alone. 

I am standing alone

and I’m not sorry. 

My favorite people 

are the ones who wouldn’t expect 

an apology for an opinion 

that doesn’t coincide with theirs. 

The ones big enough 

to respect a view point 

that crawled out of the box 

and flew out of the cage

before it could be transformed 

into a statue 

molded with fidgety hands 

and small minded robots 

pointing the way. 

My favorite people 

are the ones who don’t play 

follow the leader 

as they keep looking back 

to see the crowd behind them, 

while holding tight 

to the ones in front of them. 

Because life is too short 

to think your ending is going to be 

any different than mine. 

So, friend, 

if you must call me out 

to make yourself feel better, 

at least do it intellectually 

because all of us have beating hearts 

that bleed out passion for something. 

If mine bleeds a passion 

that doesn’t conform to yours, 

it does not mean 

my heart is beating wrong. 

It means you haven’t learned 

that everyone is different. 

It means you haven’t learned 

that everyone is indeed 

entitled to their own opinion

whether you like it or not, 

it’s mine. 

My favorite people 

are the ones who understand 

what that means, 

and respect the hard learned lesson 

of knowing how to agree to disagree. 

Be big enough 

and brave enough 

to listen without shoving 

your own views down my throat, 

forcing me to swallow it down

with a smile; I never will. 

And I wouldn’t expect you to. 

-Stephanie Bennett-Henry 2017