Inhuman

[Written for poetry class after Lucille Clifton's "the times"]

it is hard to remain human on a day
when the sun catches
right on the tip of a rooftop
and there’s a breeze
calling the dead leaves on the ground
to come up with it
and my hair follows
or it wants to.
another sunbeam
is pinned between branches
and i can’t help but
stop.
and i want to do something
besides smile
but i don’t know what.
if this day
could articulate
in a way that
we could understand
i would climb up
to listen;
in my mind
i see myself dancing
like i want to
not just walking through
with the feeling of
wings on my ankles
but twisting
turning and spinning
around in a blur
on the same feet
that have
propelled me since i
knew what dance was.
now the breeze tastes like sun
and the air tastes like last month’s cold
and warmth is coming; i can feel it
and blades of grass slowly rise upward
and everything stretches out its hands to be gilded
in the light of something as far from human as we know.
somehow it tells me:

you have no control and that is all right