You And Me: So Different, So The Same

— body language by Weddie Thiên  —

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Oh, look at all the ways you're you!

The things you love, the things you do,

The tongue you speak, the songs you sing,

The gods you praise, the bells you ring,

The food you crave, the clothes you wear,

The way you comb your tangled hair,

The country stamped upon your face,

The customs of your native place.

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The differences run deep and wide,

With canyons far too broad to stride!

Unfathomable, strange, and vast,

Our worlds with contrasts unsurpassed.

We cannot know just how each feels,

Each inner world, with private seals.

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So different, yes! So different, true!

And yet so same, down deep in you.

For at the level of our souls,

There's just one difference, on the whole.

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Now here's that difference, here it is,

The only one, I promise this:

Your soul resides in you, my friend,

Inside your body, end to end,

Inside your mind, behind your eyes,

And that is all of the surprise.

My soul resides in me, that's all,

In different rooms, in different halls.

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Not better soul, not lesser soul,

Not half a soul, but each one whole.

Not richer soul, not poorer, no,

Not fast, not slow, not high, not low.

Just yours in you and mine in me,

Two windows on one common sea.

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So different, yes! So different, true!

And yet so same, down deep in you.

For at the level of our souls,

There's just one difference, on the whole.

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So when you meet a stranger's stare

And everything looks strange and rare,

The scowl, the shrug, the foreign air,

The habits that you'd never wear,

Look past the coat, look past the skin,

Look in their eyes, look far within,

And your soul will find their soul in there,

Same soul as yours, just housed elsewhere.
 

You'll find it in the one you fight,

You'll find it in the dead of night,

In one who begs, in one who buys,

In one who tells you pretty lies,

In one whose life you'd never choose,

In one who wins, in one who’ll lose,

In one who prays a different way,

In one who has no words to say.

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So hold your differences with glee!

They shine like lights upon a tree.

But never let them make you blind

To what you'll always, always find:

One soul in you, one soul in me,

Two lamps alight, one company.

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So different, yes! So different, true!

And yet so same, down deep in you.

For at the level of our souls,

There's just one difference, on the whole.