balloons

Things were straightforward.

The homeless guy is hungry,

Give him food.

There is trash beside the road,

Pick it up.

Someone feels left out,

Invite them in.

It felt easy. Obvious.

Don’t be a jerk.

Treat other’s the way you want to be treated.

Take care of the earth and each other.

but then things became layered

and connected

and expanded

and tangled

and messy

and one day you woke up and realized that your face now makes the same look that you saw above you all of those years

the skepticism, the dullness, the eye bags, the frown lines, the tiredness, and just a hint

of envy.