she studies the swirls of the granite as the water droplets pelt down at her from above. she takes the moment to wonder - oh, how late this moment is - why she didn't feel a pinch of guilt watching an elderly woman fall in the middle of the street that afternoon. she wonders why she didn't go rush to help, but simply stood on the sidewalk and stared. stared until a man rushed to the woman's side and helped her up. she wonders as she traces the swirls with her finger and still as she draws on the foggy glass of the sliding door of the shower.
it isn't until she has truly, truly grown up that she realizes the question to her child version's conundrum. in the midst of a busy work day, she halts in her typing and her train of thought. instead, she feels. she feels for the first time as he enters the room, all dazzlingly smiles and friendly nods. she feels as he passes by and utters one syllable to her: hi. she says it back in a breathy version and he smiles knowingly before walking away. she knows then that she is caged with feelings that she has never experienced before.
the answer is that she has never ever felt anything before. for anyone. all that time her heart was simply an empty void crying for love and she drank it eagerly for breakfast from her mother, for lunch from her sister, and for dinner from her mother. she practically inhaled it and it was her oxygen for the longest time. she was deprived of a basic human quality: emotion. but that day when she say him, he gave her her feelings. her rightful feelings that belonged exclusively and eternally to her. they were late, sure, but now that she can feel, she does it in masses. she loves, she loathes, she weeps. she laughs, she cries, she screams. but most importantly of all, she is irrevocably and indefinitely human.
- WHAT BEING HUMAN MEANS [ALTERNATIVELY NAMED: DELIVERED IN A BOX LABELED FRAGILE - 7.5.16]
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OF THE LIKE
PoetryLIKE THEM; the cunning, the strong, the rational, the sensual, the rash. POE19 [151016]
