humanization

When we think of a villain,

we think of the manifestation of evil. 

When we think of a villain,

we think of some person, 

some thing, that is out to get us. 

It has no hobbies, no interests,

it does not care about attending 

Sunday brunch with its mother. 

It does not take a knitting class 

at the community center because 

it does not want to create, 

it only seeks to destroy. 

When we think of a wolf,

we think of its teeth, 

the blood, the lamb it 

carved the life out of. 

We do not hear its children crying-

we do not feel the thorn 

in its paw, the gash in its side,

how it feels hunger gnaw 

at it just like how we feel 

pain gnaw at us. 

When we think of our enemies,

we picture the grim reaper. 

A skeleton wrapped in hatred 

and melancholy and suffering,

and we do not hear its laughter. 

Even if we do, we convince 

ourselves it is cackling at us, 

it is just mocking us. 

The sound turns our spine 

into a column of ice and 

we are freezing to death. 

We do not allow it to feel joy. 

Because if we do hear it’s laughter,

if we let it’s lips spill 

bubbles instead of rocks,

we might start to trust it. 

We might start to feel 

a faint echo of warmth. 

We might see how it can smile 

and its teeth aren’t sharp or bloodied. 

We might start to see it as a them.

We begin to ask how their father is 

and if they get home alright. 

We see them joking with friends 

over a dinner table and we join in. 

We recognize them at church on 

Wednesday nights and at 

work on Monday mornings. 

When we think of them, 

we start to envision our 

family friends and close neighbors. 

Not some sort of demon 

plaguing our days and nights. 

But, we don’t see them that way. 

We think of them as 

just a sore in our side-

and we can smell the 

putrid infection from across 

the threshold of a memory. 

We dig our own graves and

plant their fingerprints on the shovel. 

We consider them a snake, 

a vice, a poison, an inhuman 

creature that has come purely 

to decimate our existence. 

We do not see them as a person 

but as a figure of speech to 

remind us Hell is still real and smoldering. 

When we think of them,

we aren’t thinking of them. 

We are actually thinking of ourselves. 

We are thinking of their 

bloody handprint on the 

crime scene that is our heart. 

The scars that they have drawn 

and designed on our backs, 

The hurt that they have tried to

leave us to grieve and bury. 

We aren’t thinking of the person 

who is standing over there,

but the bits and pieces of them 

that is still under our fingernails 

and the bits of us 

that are still under theirs. 

We think of a villain,

and we imagine a storybook plot 

where we are the hero. 

Why do we get to be human?

Why can’t they?