The human animal is a being of the stars and the slums. It’s made of blood and tissue and bones of brittle matter that bend and break. It shits where it eats sometimes and it doesn’t exactly know why. But it does.
The human animal builds things. It sends them up to heaven and then asks for forgiveness when they all come crumbling down, one brick at a time. It laughs and then cries, often in the same day. It is a creature that knows itself in a smoky mirror.
The human animal sends itself out to be seen and heard. It doesn’t look at the images of others, or else it doesn’t try to. It listens to things on loop and remembers all the days.
The human animal feels deeply, and it holds this in its pocket for the day where it can let it all out. It gasps for breath and lets its pupils focus and stares above itself sometimes, when it has the time.
The human animal rips and tears, then folds and fashions with what it has left. It doesn’t think. It just does whatever the program requires, but not ever to its knowledge. It smiles, then winces, then smiles once again when the time suits it.
The human animal marvels at all the other animals behind glass, then puts them out of sight at once. It opens doors that it’s made all by itself and attaches knobs that only it can turn.
The human animal hovers weightless in itself, letting the works come to life and then pause for the night and reemerge as if nothing has changed at all. It knows all of this in its soul, and hears it often but does not speak it as such.
The human animal is feebler than it wants, but it doesn’t let up all at once. It quakes and shakes and strains to hide the tears that it’s made in itself, but the tears are there all the while.
The human animal blinks and then breathes, lets its limbs converge and then goes about doing, always doing, always making, always shaping, while the building inside goes untouched. The outer wall is failing.
The human animal is churning even now, as it all swirls and whirls around it. It’s connected with the first ones by a thread that’s been nicked and tugged but not quite broken just yet. The thread has no end.
The human animal has wants and needs, and is really only its first form. It shows masks and wears costumes and has many words for itself, after all. The first hiccupping breaths are still there, though, all the while.
The human animal has all too much to share, but not of the right kind. It’s trying, though, and maybe that’s all that counts. It has itself to mind and itself is enough.
The human animal experiments and winds around and ends up where it began and then laughs at the trip. It whines and whirs like its creations do, but at a different frequency, an altered hum.
The human animal is barked at and whipped, by the other animals and even by itself. It sees these things as unfortunate consequences, but it knows even so that they shouldn’t happen.
The human animal has exactly one truth, and that truth is for its match to know. It carries this in its pocket, same as the feelings, and only lets just the one peek. Just the one.
The human animal dies, same as the rest of the animals, and it hopes it leaves something behind. It laughs and cries at the sight of all the flowers lying there in the dirt. It lets the pebbles and sand gather at them.
The human animal gets tired and weary, same as the one who made it, and it sits and then wants to stand just as soon. It wilts and blooms and its petals shift into a form more becoming of a civilized luxury that’s really just complete bullshit.
The human animal digs and climbs and winds and finds all so that it can sit down in comfort one day and look back at it all. A lifetime of work and a back that’s split in two so it can have that moment of peace and quiet.
The human animal questions it all, and then questions which is the one for the asking. It processes shit as it cogitates and considers its place in it all. The shit comes out as the thoughts do.
The human animal writes down these thoughts as markings, same as the shit makes its own mark in the grass. The one and the other, cleared away by the rains. If it can have its own peace for a while, then that’s all that matters.
The human animal bleeds and then sees the tint of itself smeared across in the sun. It sees the color of itself as a sign of worry and doesn’t know where this tint came from when it did come in the first place at all.
The human animal needs a lot and a little. It mistakes wants for needs and then repeats it so that others can hear it when it tells them this. It likes for others to hear in on its inner warblings and turnings and all that.
The human animal listens for the call of others, but often only as a last resort. It hears them as echoes first and only finally knows that its own heartbeat is distinct from the other sounds as they thump on through.
The human animal comes to its days with all it has on its back. It knows the times can be hard, but they can also be made right again.
Liza Olson 