Humanity: Is It Me or You?

CW: Emotional distress

Umm

Humanity

Is It Me or You?

Is it me or you?

Remind me. Is there something wrong with me?

I’m going to admit it now.

I’m not gonna hide behind the truth.

I’ve been hiding so long I forgot what my own face looked like without the mask. The truth was a blanket I pulled over my head, thinking if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. But they always see. They always know where to find you when you’re trying to disappear. So I’m done with that. I’m standing here, no blanket, no truth, just skin and bone and the thing inside that’s been screaming so long my throat is raw.

Oof, do you even make me so sick? I say it all the time. It’s my rant, it’s my rave. It’s the thing I like to do. It’s the one thing that makes me.

When I say it—when I let it rip—something in my chest unclenches. It’s like I’ve been holding a breath for years, and finally I let it out, and the sound is ugly, and it scrapes, and it’s mine. They don’t want to hear it. They want the polite version, the one that smiles and nods and says, “I’m fine.” But I’m not fine. I haven’t been fine since the first time I saw what people do to each other when they think no one’s watching.

I feel like you. I hate humans.

Not in the abstract. Not in the way people say “I hate people” because traffic was bad or someone cut in line. I hate them the way you hate a disease that’s eaten through your family. The way you hate a fire that took everything and still smolders in the walls. It’s in my bones now, this vile malice, pure hatred. It’s not my preference, not a willful conscious thought.

Fought hard, what I personally accomplished is a field that makes it ambient to be around me—go ahead, investigate.

I actually choose; it’s a hum that never stops. Every time I see a human do something—anything—that hum gets louder.

Oh, oh, it was passive. Every time you do something I just—I want to lose it.

Passive aggression, passive cruelty, passive indifference—it’s all the same poison in a different bottle. You stand there, you humans, with your faces arranged just so, saying nothing while your eyes say everything. You smile while you’re gutting someone. You call it “just being honest” when you’re twisting the knife. And I’m supposed to take it, supposed to be the bigger person, supposed to “let it go.”

Let it go where? Into the pile of things I’ve swallowed until my gut is full of rocks?

All the drugs in the world couldn’t patch up my head after all the crazy shit that I’ve seen y’all do.

I’ve tried. Lord knows I’ve tried. Pills, powders, things that burn going down, things that make the world soft at the edges. But the images don’t fade. The memories are etched in, not written—etched with acid. I can still see the faces, the things done with hands that looked just like mine, the casual way destruction is served up like a plate of food. And everyone acts like it’s normal. Like it’s just Tuesday.

It’s a specialist in being a disaster master.

Oh!

You’re masters of disaster. You build towers just to watch them fall. You hold those people you pretend close just to feel the drop when you let go. You wrap cruelty in kindness until the person being strangled doesn’t even know they’re dying. And then you walk away, hands clean, heart light, onto the next one.

Please, hummy, ’cause I’m not. I’m going to do it—I’m gonna pull it out.

Hummy—hum me a tune that makes sense. Hum me something that explains why we do this to each other. Because I’m about to pull it out, this thing I’ve been carrying. I’m going to set it on the table and make you look at it. No more hiding. No more “I’m fine.” You want to see crazy? Let’s talk about what’s normal. Let’s talk about what passes for human every day.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Everybody’s gonna get a lick.

I don’t mean violence. I mean truth. I mean I’m going to say the things that are supposed to stay unsaid, and you’re going to feel it. You’re going to feel that lash across your assumptions, your pretenses, your “good intentions.” Because somebody has to say it. Somebody has to stand in the middle of the circus and point at the ringmaster and say, “This is not entertainment. This is sickness.”

I bet y’all don’t just keep tickin’ on after that.

You think you’re so durable, you humans. You think your polite society and your rules and your rituals will hold. But I’ve seen what happens when the clock runs out. I’ve seen the ticking stop, and what’s underneath is not pretty. It’s not civilized. It’s teeth and claws and the same hungry thing that’s been there since the first ape picked up a rock.

Uh, I don’t know why I’m being ridiculous. It’s true.

Yeah, I hear myself. I know how it sounds. But ridiculous doesn’t mean false. The truth is often ridiculous—that’s why everyone runs from it. Because if you look at it straight on, it looks like a joke. A bad joke. And you laugh so you don’t scream. But I’m done laughing.

But when it’s all said and done, anymore, you get down to it. Are you people having me stumbling? You’re not people; you’re just filthy, dirty animals.

You’re worse than criminals. Criminals, at least, know what they are. They don’t wrap it in virtue. They don’t call their theft “disruption” or their cruelty “necessary.” You—you regular humans, you with your mortgages and your book clubs and your charitable donations—you do the same things, but you’ve convinced yourselves you’re good. And that lie makes you worse. Because a wolf doesn’t pretend to be a shepherd.

Despicable individuals, this is just you—sting in humans.

Sting—like a bee that dies when it stings. Is that what you are? Do you know you’re killing yourselves with what you do? Or is that just the collateral you don’t count? Every small betrayal, every word said behind a back, every moment you choose yourself over someone else—it adds up. And you don’t even feel it anymore. You’ve become numb to your own poison.

So don’t be telling me all the time.

Don’t stand there and tell me I’m the one with the problem. Don’t point at my rage and call it sickness while you’re walking around with your own rot hidden behind a smile. I see you. I see all of you. And I’m done pretending I don’t.

Then, I mention—you make my brain hurt. I literally feel a pain in the ass. If I was carrying a pane of glass, yeah, we’d probably walk right through.

All humans help me, humans help themselves. Help me not to lose my mind.

Oh, you humans, you make me cranky. You make me ache from behind.

Cranky is the word I use when I’m trying to be polite. But the ache is real. It’s in my spine, my shoulders, the place where I hold all the things I can’t say. It’s physical, this weight. It bends me. And you don’t see it, because you’re too busy looking at your own reflections.

Yeah, you can take that how you want to. But I’m not taking it so well. Got me around these humans.

I’m in hell!

Hell isn’t fire and brimstone. Hell is being surrounded by people who can’t see themselves, who walk through the world leaving wreckage and calling it living. Hell is knowing what you are and being forced to pretend you’re not. Hell is this—this room, these faces, it's endless.

What’s wrong with me.

But maybe it is me, because I can’t stop seeing it. I can’t stop feeling it. Every human gesture, every word, every interaction

—I see the machinery underneath. I see the self-preservation, the hunger, the fear that drives everything.

And I know it’s in me too. I know I’m the same animal. That’s what makes it hell. I’m not outside looking in. I’m inside, clawing at the walls, trying to get out of a cage that I am.

So I admit it now. I’m not hiding behind the truth. Something’s wrong with me. I hate humans. Not because I’m righteous

- But because I see us

—all of us

—and I can’t unsee it

- And it made me sick.

The seeing is the direct results.

Rant, and rave, this is my resolve turn to indignation

You want to know what’s wrong with me? Let's all go look in the mirror!

Lord knows I’ve tried.

I’ve drank the drinks, took the pills, I've looked until my eyes burned. Underneath, steady and quite, its a heartbeat of truth! Most people learn to ignore it.

They call it “being mature”

- or “moving on.”

I call it drowning

- then learning to call

- it swimming.

So here I am.

No lies.

No mask.

Just this

the raw unfiltered beast

- that threatens to rip open my chest!

It's demanded release since the first time.

I saw how we do one another.

I’m not asking for your sympathy.

I’m not asking for your understanding.

I’m not asking for anything,

- because I’ve learned that you cant asked. Accepting that asking is the equivalent of asking the sea not to be wet.

We are what we are.

Done pretending!

Oh, trust me & believe!

We are not same, my hatred doesn't run so deep.

“stress.”

It"s the weight of watching, of not being able to look away.

Because every time I see a human do something—stupid —I feel it.

It’s exhausting and y'all are killing me.

So I’ll keep saying it. I’ll keep ranting, keep raving, keep pulling the thing out and setting it on the table. I’ll crack. I’ll shatter. And I’ll be just another broken thing in a world that breaks everything it touches.

You’re not people more like filthy, dirty animals.

Ya'll all criminal.

Despicable individuals, this is just you -being human. I'm watching the train wreck, in real time.

Humans make my brain hurt.

It literally a sharp pain in my butt.

It only when I think about human.

If I was carrying a pane of glass.

God, guaranteed - walk right through it.

Oh so cranky, and achy

Yeah take it, how you want.

- I'm not taking sss-hhĥ-iiiì-tttt!

Cause y'all aint no - olive oil "So I've done stands, all I can stands; and I can't stand no more!"

Got me round

-these damned,

- humans,

- they dont even know

-what it mean!

Being around human is hell!

Well, I'm waiting

-what does it mean

-to you be human?

At least it's been spoken!

At least I've said my truth!

At least, for a moment,

- the mask slipped off!

At least some human

- will actually see me

At least “Hmph" yea right!

At least i see that human will

- never see what’s underneath. .

By

Jc