Teachers
and parents
throughout the world
remind us kindness costs nothing.

Compassion is both free
and freeing.

But, those same teachers
and parents
and preachers
may not as directly mention
that meanness risks losing everything
you would care to feel positively healthy,
and not quite so negatively overstuffed wealthy,

Like anger and fear about loss,
Like competitions in escalating bipolar hate
and immigrant Othering,
Like loss of cooperative control,
Like loneliness,
Like criminalization,
judged degenerate,
defective.

We might borrow a chapter
from the natural ecologist’s textbook
about walking the second cooperative win/win mile
before anticipating win/lose meanness
in climatic return.

Meanness,
intent to harm,
rather than kindly heal,
costs society,
including privileged Straight White Fathers,
and communities
and families
and individuals,
everything good
healthy
prosperous
promoting well-being,

Like greed
envy
hate
anger
fear,

A bundle of endless need
to escape and shun
and starve and dry up
and heal
to restore ecosystemic justice

Where punishing egosupremacy
continues to fail
to motivate the hearts
of thriving healthy kindness

More redemptively co-invested
in health and safety governing systems
than competitively infested
meanness,
which costs everything,
including loss of Left and Right
cooperative enlightenment
and sacred empowerment
producing win/win co-invested kindness.