How To Human

words by Namira Rubaiyath, art by Ananya Sairaman

Humor me, for a moment.

(You) are not the lithe, limby human (you) once were. 

(You) have no focus on what (your) hands are, or what they do;

what (your) feet are, or where they take you.

But rather, on (your) vellus hairs perking up at a gust of wind, for (your) navigation’s sake;

on (your) eyes, having developed a nictitating membrane to make the most of (your) vision;

on (your) knees and their perpetual crouch-bend, prepared to supply kinetic energy,

if needed.

(You) are equal parts stripped and relieved of the worldly worries that once governed you.

It could, perhaps, be said that you have been reduced; 

but really, you have been introduced to your baser instincts.

Consider the light shining through the window!

Notice that (you) squint; 

Had (you) been human (remember, you are not), it may have been because you slept in,

Perhaps you had done something you shouldn’t have, and now wince in regret.

But, (you) are a body, and what a body does is react to stimuli,

And (your) retinas only know that they can not perceive this light without hurting (you).

So (you) squint.

In all honesty, (you) don’t know what (you) are doing,

A voice, from somewhere too far for (you) to echolocate, calls out, “Have you ever?”

I will answer for (you):

Once, you forget a birthday and that muscle in your thoracic cavity 

speeds up as though (you) are flinging (yourself) straight off a cliff.

Another time, you stand in front of this other body and for some odd reason,

(Your) zygomaticus major pulls to make (you) smile, as though (you’d) found good shelter.

And another, you get on a large flying cylinder and land across the ocean,

And (your) intestines begin to squirm like it does when (your) bile can’t be contained.

(Your) arms flare up in bumps, and (your) tongue tastes metallic, and (your) blood

feels like curdled milk in (your) esophagus.

It seems strange to (you) now,

That your body would ever subscribe, willingly, 

To these sensations without any real, tangible threat. 

But there was a time,

Where you had these undulations in your stomach and your diaphragm would double over,

(you called them butterflies!)

In response to a pretty face that made the blood vessels in your cheeks pop.

And you would tell yourself to breathe in deep, 

telling your vagus nerve to tell your brain to tell

‍ ‍your cardiovascular system to calm down.

Unfortunately, (you) have this traitorous little thing called a heart.

It gave itself a name, conquered (your) chest, and (your) head,

And made itself (your) lifesource.

And (you) cannot feel it now,

but the form of you that was human wishes it could sigh,

Out of relief and not just the need for breath.

Clench your fists out of the heat in your heart,

And not in preparation for a fight.

It wishes it could care for the trivial, miniscule, anthropocentric.

It wishes it could wish.

It is the kind of answer that doesn't really touch the question.

For good reason, however.

There has been a part of you that always knew

That beneath the arteries and blood clots,

behind biological imperatives,

there is a sentimentality so purely human and non-somatic,

All you can do is giggle.

(What instinctual drive is there within you to giggle?)

And there is a part of you that will never know

how to tell apart the constant battles between 

your lymphocytes and bacteria from

those between your heart and your mind.

Perhaps they are one and the same.

But!

When (your) instincts to survive

give way to your instincts to forfeit survival;

When you know that your eyes dilate

because someone is there to tell you so;

(You) will have found that you are human,

again.