Prompted Poem: Virtue

This is no shiny coin

with which to fill your purse

and purchase good repute,

no mere trinket, and its point

is not to prove who's worse,

it's not a social parachute.

Not who you choose to be

when you know the world's watching,

but who sleeps, and dreams, at night.

It's not a finish line,

a sunset in which to ride,

a trophy for display.

Nothing so crystalline,

not rigid — fluid as the tide,

no "I've always been this way."

A process, yes, maybe,

and judgement is debauching

this most basic human right.

Kindness, patience, understanding,

hopeful always, never demanding.