The Gods Tremble Before Quiet Strength

I know you best when you are flowers in the barrels of rifles. 

I know you best when you are brave.  

I know you when your strength comes from your compassion and when your greatest fear, is that you have not been compassionate enough. 

I know you when you look at others not as others but as people you might have been, as people your parents might have been, as people your children might still be. 

I know you and I see you when you stand up. 

I know you and I see you when they tell you to be afraid, to hate, to go away from the world, to go away from each other. I know you and I see you when they scream storms at you, when they bury you beneath mountains, when they drown you in oceans, when they push you under and yet still you whisper from the deepest part of you: 

“No.” 

 And when you do, I look at you and I say, “There you are. 

I know you."