The Stones Bleed Like Me

To be human is a self-alienating experience  

I have struggled with my whole life.  

To be so yourself, you think:  

*Who could possibly understand me?  

Know me?  

Truly comfort my complex soul?*  

But as I’ve grown older,  

I have come to realize—  

I am reflected in all my brothers and sisters.  

I am all of humanity,  

and humanity is all of me.  

I am the judge, the jury,  

the executioner, and the criminal.  

I am every victim  

and every criminal.  

I am every warlord  

and every starving child left in their wake.  

I have felt the blade of every scared soldier  

pierce my flesh,  

and the pride of every survivor  

knowing they cut down the man before them.  

I am the poor man on the side of the street,  

begging for coin to fill my burning stomach.  

I am the rich man trading humans as commodities,  

stripping agency from others  

to spend on materialistic pursuits.  

I am the torn flesh on the back of a stubborn slave,  

and I am the hand that holds the blood-covered whip.  

I am the man who gives his all to the pursuits of his mind,  

and his brother, drowning in envy.  

I am the woman starved of her beloved’s love,  

and the man who cannot understand love for himself.  

I am the person tending the trees,  

and the man who salts the earth.  

I am the man who gives his life for those he loves,  

and the man who parades his brutalized corpse  

through a conquered land—  

a cruel reminder of what it means to stand against me.  

I am the doctor standing for days,  

trying to save a life.  

And I am the life on the operating table,  

entrails strewn like sanguine party favors,  

clutching at existence.  

When I watch another person die before me,  

I feel a part of me die as well.  

I witness another one of my deaths—  

a cruel theater with endless encores.  

This is what it means to be human:  

to be a man, a woman, a child, an elder.  

This is what it means.