When Confronted With The Unknown Poem by RIC BASTASA

you dislike what i am,
but you cannot tell me, i know that,
one day, you take the courage,
with the power of your
hidden self, and i have engaged in
the word war, with the unknown,
very much like it, very much like you,
and i have no regrets, having known,
what worse reality you have seen
what you cannot have spoken
what is revealed, and how i deal with
what i do not know, and i, afterward,
learned, how to win,
even with an unknown, which seemingly,
seems to be the truth,
you are cruel, i tell myself,
but thanks, i have become wiser
by then, even an inch higher
than my toes can handle.