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By Doing This

By: Anon

About The Poem

I’m studying towards a Diploma in Counselling and since September 2020 it has
been taught via zoom because of Covid-19. Through out the course I’ve heard
stories of trauma, racism, sexism and how society can favour people that are cisgendered, male,’able’-bodied, young, white-bodied, that identify as heterosexual
and people that come from a middle/upper-class background. I asked my tutor in a
tutorial how do “we” do this and not lose faith in humanity, especially if the system
can encourage and support these current experiences. We have to hold people in
our sessions. How do we not lose faith in humanity, whilst doing that? He
mentioned how I didn’t ask him directly, that I looked down and he said, “by doing,
this” and just looked at me. My eyes instantly welled up and I cried.
This poem is about that experience and what I understood in the moment. I talk
about when I’ve felt more connected to myself and others, how that happened and
how that restores my faith in humanity. It is profound what connection and contact
can do.

The Poem

You say, “By doing, this.”
You just look at me
Looking differently not like you ordinarily do
but I’m questioning my sanity amidst this systemic shamble and ask,
“how do you do this and not lose faith in humanity?”
not asking quite that directly saying “how do we” to distance you from me
You say, “By doing, this”
unmasking, peeling back
asking what I’m feeling,
to own more of that aliveness, tingling that’s where the meaning is at
“by doing this”
by holding me whilst in my weariness
by hearing me bare my truths, clung to, by tears
by seeing me break that mould
by resonating, revealing the untold parts of you
by speculating the shoulds that are far too old for me
“by doing, this”
eyes well up from heartfelt warmth, wishing everyone could absorb this themselves,
seeping in, grounding me in my seat
by seeing you seeing me right now
Hoping we can meet
“by doing, this”

-that’s how

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