Veins

To be human is to be nature - beating, throbbing, experiencing itself.

Who am I?

Who are you?

.

Are we everything?

Are we nothing?

.

What does it mean

To be something?

Must I grasp at

My heaving skin

To prove to myself

That I am real?

Must I claw at

The sodden mud

And feel the worms

Crawling up my arms

So I know that

I am connected

To something?

.

Am I?

I think I am —

My capillaries

Cut through

Blood-soaked

Landscapes,

And the red

In your eyes

Stretches and

Branches out

Like lines on a map.

To be human

Is to be the universe

Experiencing itself

And breaking through

The barriers of

Consciousness

To know.

.

Being is total.

It’s stamped upon

Every fingerprint,

Every hair follicle,

And every cell

Of all the organisms

In our world.

I am the trees.

And the sun.

The wind soaring

Through green pastures.

I am every blade

Of grass, each grain

Of yellow sand.

I am the smallest ant,

And the tallest mountain.

I am flesh,

And I am soil.

I am the crow,

And the berries

It crushes

In its mouth.

I am the vultures

And the festering

Flesh they

Feast upon.

I am the farmer

And the lamb

Being led to slaughter.

I am the waves,

And the shark

Tailing its prey.

The veins which

Flow between

You and me,

The veins that

Root the trees

To the soil,

And the ones which

Run between it all,

Red and purple

And brown,

Muddled and

Meeting in

The middle,

Interconnected.

.

I am the earth —

I am human.

I am me.

I am you.

I am everything,

And I am nothing.

It’s all the same, anyway.

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