Humanization Poem by Gracie Michard

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?