100% Pure

i am not 100% percent pure

i don’t presume to know 
the level of my purity at all, 
though i can tell you 
with great certainty,

it’s nowhere near 100% percent

i am made of reality
i am mixed—a mutt
i’m full of bad things 
fuller still with abundance of good things
i am not pure,
but tainted

even though i’m not supposed to
i like it that way

i love my eyes 
for having witnessed corruption 
while still choosing to see beauty, 
because i know 
witnessing beauty 
is always a choice

i love my ears 
for hearing the screams, wails,
whimpers of torture endured 
by many and few
while still choosing 
to tune into the tiny melodies 
that make up this orchestra of existence

i love my nose 
for smelling the putrefaction 
of lost lives 
rotting in their passivity 
while still choosing 
to smell the menthols in a eucalyptus grove, 
or the wetness of the ground after a rain

i love my mouth 
for tasting the moment a substance has turned 
while still choosing to touch her tongue 
to the sweetness of seasonal fruits 
and to savor the complexity of taste
in true nourishment 

i love my body
for enduring the assaulting touches, 
the aches and the pain 
that an impure existence is comprised of, 
while still choosing 
to reach out and gently graze 
the petal of a fresh spring rose, 
or let the sand squeeze between her toes

i love my body 
for understanding 
that love is made up of mistakes
because of our precious impurities 
we hold great power to wound
but even greater power to soothe

for teaching me
we are meant to heal
by becoming sensitive again
to the power of our senses
to recognize that  i m p u r i t y  
is not what disconnects us 
from our power, 
it’s the thing that teaches us 
to harness it

i am impure

i don’t know what percentage of me 
is afflicted 
by this lack of perfection 
but perhaps i am also 
more powerful 
because i see my impurities 
as something to embrace 
rather than to fear