Human
Bridey Bingley
Our world –
Once a perfect world
But now it is marked
Marked by the pain we have put in this world
Marked by the suffering we have put in this world
Marked by the destruction we have put in this world
Marked and scratched and flawed with imperfections
We hide them
Bury them
Forget them
Yet I fear they are inked on us.
No hiding
No burying
No forgetting
Can stop them from being
But
All these imperfections
Make me wonder
Whether all these imperfections
Make us human?
Whether it is not our intelligence
Or the way we love
Or our conscience
That make us human –
But all the marks
All the scratches
All the imperfections
We put on this earth
That make us human
Can a blood-stained sword ever regain its innocence?
Can a flattened forest ever be reborn?
Can all these marks
All these scratches
All these imperfections
Ever fully heal?
Maybe
If we took off our rose-tinted glasses
And saw the imperfect world –
Our imperfect world
As it really is
If we did not hide
Bury
Forget
These marks
These scratches
These imperfections
If we wore them on our skin
Not in pride but in understanding
If we accepted
That these marks
These scratches
These imperfections
Make us human
Then we could make them heal
But then,
Would we still be human?