I am experiencing the human condition
Or I would be, if I knew what such a thing was.

They say poetry is an art form designed to show emotion
emotion of course representing such a thing as a human condition
but my poem is broken

I must insert 25 ccs of suffering more,
50 ccs of subtlety more,
and 100 ccs of emotion more,
not to mention the 600 mg of lithium,
the 25 µg of Wellbutrin,
and the 100 mg of synthroid I put in myself.

But my poem is broken.
And if poetry is a form of the human condition
and I cannot form my poem
then I cannot form the human condition.

This is an inevitable factor in the world of man
most people tend to forget it, but it is so
the more I cut myself off from the world around me
the more I become what the world needs from me.

Then comes righteous silence.

Silence is golden but only in small amounts
Silence is only golden when the faux silver of duct tape must
simply not do.
Emotion is a human condition, but I must take the pills.

After all, if these pills are not effective,
they’ll simply electroshock my brain
in order to find my human condition

Who am I?
Why am I here?
Forget these questions--
hey, hand me another beer.

But surely--or Shirley--the animal crackers in my soup
are just as sick and tired as I of being a pawn--
afraid of the magic space wizard destroying us all--
they are just as afraid of the inevitable,
that indeed, everything all along has been true
and tis all forbidden
Afraid that perhaps the friendly raccoon’s intentions
are not so honest as they appear when we first move
to our new woodland home

Perhaps my animal crackers in my soup
are more afraid I will lose myself
as I stumble down the rabbit hole
looking for the man who burned down my home
only to discover he truly was the innocent
(In this crime, at least)

Or perhaps as I stare these pills down,
muting my human condition has come easier;
no longer am I attacked by strange men
for a golden woman carrying a blue staff

No long must I boldly proclaim
that I’ll go out through my kitchen
when indeed, for someone with my body
(human condition aside)
belongs there, if only to make a sandwich.

If only there was a dictionary definition in the back
of every high school textbook
and we are made to ‘put it in our own words.’
Defining what should be such a simple thing
should be rather easy then.

But nobody said it was easy.
We were all told that we were special
but I have come to the conclusion that
saying everybody is special is really saying
that nobody is.

And if nobody is special,
should not our own human condition be the same?
or is is simply that no,
humans are manufactured on a mass-produced scale
for the pleasure of those powers that be?

Yes, they have a tough game with tough rules,
and they’ll win (and I’ll always lose)
but am I a design flaw?  Something wrong in manufacturing?
I’ve traveled to these human distribution centers
and there were many babies wrapped
in blue or pink cloth dictating from birth
a key aspect where the human in question
has no choice.
And their human condition has been dictated to them
but I paid no mind

(I ignored the stains on)

I allowed human condition to be dictated,
knowing most of these children will grow to be
a design flaw like me.

Lost.
Confused.
And waiting on a mother swan to come
and tell me I am beautiful, and indeed
I have been in the wrong place the entire time.

And as I left this distribution center
of humans, and the human condition
I asked myself
“What god would make this world?”

“What god would make this world
with so much suffering and pain and make us
unable to identify for fear of what will happen to us?”

“Was it an angry teenaged god who played a game
only to find that his friends were murdered around his ears
and he must have to build this universe by himself?”

“Was it a god who lived in a world all alone
only to hate any form of life beyond himself?”

And as I asked myself these questions
I prayed that it wasn’t true.
That maybe, this is just exclusive to my
inability to find my human condition.