You know what you’re supposed to do
A disembodied voice
Won’t help you

Your blood is pumping
Legs carrying you
Down the street, down the path
You have peeling nails
And
Dark eyes
You are acting very human
Good job

You know how to smile
And say
“hello, how are you?”
And make polite conversation
Except you aren’t feeling very polite today
(and you would rather stay in bed
But you ran out of milk)

Look at you, acting human
Talking, picking up things people have dropped
Making small talk
Reading nutrition facts as if you care
About how much sugar is in this cake
(when you do not)

You know what to do
There is no advice I can give
To help you pass for polite, for charming
For caring, and smiling, and calm
And happy and sociable
Instead of the person
that has to resist kicking sand
In a child’s face

Whatever you do now is okay
The savage urge to tear down shelves
And kick and throw a tantrum
When you find out they ran out of 2%
Is stifled under the weight of your overwhelming
Humanity

That cashier is talking to you
But you feign a headache
Say the lights are killing you
Who even likes fluorescents anyway?
To get out of it
Because sometimes you aren’t all that
All the nice things you show others

It is a good thing
That you learned how to act human
Very early on
Or you would be drinking this milk in the parking lot
Instead of driving your Pontiac home
To put it in a cup and sip
Like a human
Like a person
Who doesn’t want to kick sand in a child’s face