What kind of human are you? — By Brenton Weyi
What kind of human are you?
It’s a question I’ve wanted to ask so many as
I dive into an exploratory excavation of their personhood
What stories were bottled up and cast into the rivers of your bloodline?
What whispers and traditions, songs and renditions were etched into your bones?
But I rarely ask.
Because we’ve been brought up in a world where we so often demonize the difficult questions
What binds together the ethereal threads of personhood?
Is it the pulsating beats of our Icarus hearts?
Is it the deep fears of inadequacy or unbelonging?
Or maybe that we all come from the same place in the end, and the beginning,
Cradled by a mother who always doted on us with equal love.
But welcomed us into a world where we’re trained so easily to forget
About each other. About ourselves
To forget that we’ve always truly seen with our hearts and our minds
Because the eyes have always been trained to deceive.
Only able to perceive the exterior skin, cells and selves that we portray
To the outside world
Even the word “person” is a lie,
It comes from the Latin word persona, meaning “mask.”
So what’s the difference between seeing a persona and seeing a human?
The vibrant spirit. The untold scars that lie beneath the surface.
How do we begin to celebrate our differences?
Why is it that we experience wonder at the sight of the white tiger
Or regale the single wild rose boldly claiming its place in the grassy field?
And yet we don’t splash that same color of awe in the human spectrum
Or if we do, we’re met with armies of questioning stares
There will come a day where we reach an impasse, a fork in the road as a collective.
And our choice will shape what that world will become.
Will it become a world of fervent beauty where we link our human spirit, yet celebrate our unique origins?
Or will it become a world of stark darkness where we further cage and bottle up such beautiful human essence.
Well I suppose it depends on one question: What kind of human are you?