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Description
Humans are animals in every way
but for how we see ourselves—
mothers still fight for their young,
fathers still protect and still abandon,
siblings fight for and against each other,
and we pick and chew and pluck and hit;
we bite and snarl and kick and scratch;
but we read and learn and smile -
did you know that smiling, that
baring the teeth, is a sign of aggression?

We spill blood for fun and we clothe
ourselves in ink and pierce the skin
just to dangle shiny things from it -
we sleep, hours wasted but love the
dreams too much to stop - we are
creatures of actions, of growls and
territory and protecting strangers -
we care with a heart more vast than
space and sometimes I believe
that aliens will see that they fly in
our arteries and they too will wonder:
"Why do they love so much, why
do they care for strangers, why do
they let themselves ache as they do?"

We are selfless creatures because we
know of yearning - of wanting something
so badly that it burns, that the want
and the need of it constricts vein and
pupil; that it sets all of our nerves ablaze,
electricity snapping along cortices with
no where to go; that it curls the tongue
and warms the skin and catches the
very air we breathe—and we do nothing
about it and for that, for curving such
a want that our biology itself begs for it,
we are selfless: undeniably so.

We hold restraint close to our chests
because we have lost the key years ago,
all of us without a lock, without a chain,
without anything to keep it shut away
and keep it there—as a trade we let our
curiosity flourish without control, our
eyes bright and starry and filled with
nothing but closed throats and tingling
fingertips - after all the smartest minds
and the bravest hearts were the ones
who named machine after the human soul
and let it live among a planet we have
only touched in dreams, who birthed it
to sing itself a happy birthday.

Humans are golden and silvery, all white
filling and black lines, all blue tissue and
red blood, all pill and capsule; we are
the strike of lightning and roll of thunder -
we are the caged beast and the roaming
wilderness - we are the snarling teeth and
quick smile - we are the breathless awe
and blooming wonder - we are the fingerprints
left on the glass of spaceships and the
bouncing glances of galaxies and star clusters -
we are the question of why and the answer of
why not - we are the sharp toothy grin
and the need to know everything.