Cos you’re working out
What needs to be said
You’re stuck in your thoughts
Inside your own head

Instead of focusing
On what I’m trying to convey
You’re thinking about
The next thing you’ll say

So you don’t notice the words
Unsaid and spoken
My body, the message
Signposts of what’s broken

I get shut down
Before I’m even open
You’re not listening to me
My words might as well be unspoken

You have your ideas,
Your insights, your solutions
You want me to see them
Neutralise my life pollution

But you don’t know my problems
No clue of how I tick
Cos you didn’t take the time
To listen, to click

We never connected
So I didn’t trust
Your interest in me
More weighty than dust

A connection that shows
That you really care
My voice counts for something
For me you’re really there

So ask me questions
Open and enquiring
And let me speak
Without judgemental perspiring

Don’t interrupt me
Don’t frequently interject
I need time to express
To formulate, accept

For the words I speak
Are often news to me
Thoughts deep inside
Desperate to be free

And when there’s a moment
An appropriate time
It’s time for the magic
The real listening paradigm

Show me you hear me
By repeating, reflecting
Of meaning, of feeling
Empathy infecting

And please I implore
I beg, I plead
Don’t issue trite clichés
Like ‘I hear you’, indeed

Please lose the script
The insincerity reeks
I need proper interaction
The one who finds, the one who seeks

You don’t know it all
You don’t know me for a start
The way you will find me
Is if I see your heart

I see your heart
By you taking the time
To hear my feelings
Hear my reason, my rhyme

And once you’ve heard me
I’ll be able to hear
The words that come from you
Your insights to be freer

Cos you’ll be starting from
The place that I am
Suggestions appropriate
No use of battering rams

The feelings connection
Overcoming the barriers
Together we’ll become
The problem-solving harriers

If you don’t do this
The ‘words’ that will fly
F*** off, or ignoring
A chair or a lie

Nothing will change
Nothing’ll get better
I’ll hunker down some more
Write my ‘worthless’ confirmation letter

To hear is to care
To care is to know
The truth that’s within me
That’s the way I will grow

So listen to me
Validate my existence
Then let words fly into my ears
Listening’s reciprocity insistence.