I’m a foreigner.

A white girl in a brown world.

I stick out.

I’m a target.

Oh how I wish that my safety were not an issue!

Because sometimes I feel like Rapunzel,

Locked up in a tower,

Looking down on the world and wishing--

Wishing to join the people below,

Wishing to learn their ways.

If only I could be invisible,

Then maybe I could get up close and personal.

Yet, here I am,

Up in my tower,

So detached from the “real world” below.

I can’t keep my eyes off that window.

What is it about this window?

What is it that so enchants me?

There is no beauty beyond its pane,

Nothing glamorous

To be desired.

It’s not a happy sight I see,

And yet children play without a care

And families gather round for an evening meal.

I don’t see violence.

I don’t see starvation.

I don’t see worry on everyone’s faces.

There’s something there

That’s missing from here

And it’s burning a hole in my heart.

But I have everything --

Everything a being could need,

Everything a being could want.

But maybe that’s my problem:

Beauty is found in the simple things.

“It is what it is.”

“Some things can’t be changed.”

But the heart can

And this window is changing mine.