Two Eyes, One Vision (Spoken Word by Ryan Michaels)

Close your eyes.

Breathe in.

Let the noise fade—the scrolling, the shouting, the sides we’ve been told we must choose.

Now…

Open just one.

Fix it on something.

A cup. A face. A flag. A wound.

What do you see?

Now switch.

Close that eye. Open the other.

Same object. Same location.

But now it’s different—just slightly.

Shifted.

Skewed.

Still real. Still present.

But the angle’s changed.

And suddenly… it tells a different story.

Now open both eyes.

Together.

Suddenly—depth.

Suddenly—truth, not in either eye alone…

…but in the tension between them.

We were meant to see with both eyes.

But look at us now:

Left eye. Right eye.

Left wing. Right wing.

Red state. Blue state.

This side. That side.

And both claiming to see the whole picture with one eye squeezed shut.

How did we get here?

A culture choking on its own certainties,

Suffocating under the weight of labels—

“Junkie.”

“Karen.”

“Radical.”

“Snowflake.”

“Enemy.”

We don't talk anymore—

We target.

We don’t feel—we filter.

And instead of listening, we wait to attack.

Because somewhere along the way,

outrage became identity.

And empathy became weakness.

But what if…

What if we stopped demanding everyone see the world from our one eye?

What if we opened the other?

What if we remembered

That someone hurting doesn't need punishment—they need healing.

That someone different doesn't need silencing—they need understanding.

That someone struggling isn't our burden—they’re our mirror.

We are a world crying for change

But scared to change ourselves.

And yet… change doesn’t come by closing more eyes.

It comes from opening them.

So I ask you:

Close your eyes.

Then open just one.

Now switch.

Feel that discomfort? That shift?

Now open both.

And look again.

That’s how we heal.

That’s how we rise.

That’s how we start to see each other again—not as enemies, but as reflections.

Not as problems, but as people.

Two eyes. One vision.

Let’s start seeing the whole picture.

Let’s start building something better.💔❤️‍🩹💚🌱