We Lepers

Shared sickness creates a cure
that the healthy cannot know.
The showing of our open sores
repels those who are whole,
or who think they are.

But by admitting our diseases
to another with our sufferings,
we apply cleansing words
to wash each other’s defects
and rinse away the fester.

These wounds of our creation,
never apparent, always present,
cannot be removed but can
be accepted as what we were
and not as what we’re becoming.