Humanity

It was a dark thing that lived in their chests
It was a heavy thing that kept them tied to the ground
Unaware of the power their wings held
And yet so very alert to the fact
That wings they did have
Feathers and muscles and tendons
Screaming to be set free
Aching for the air

It was a too bright thing
Like the too white room
Where insanity first ignited in the mind of the insane 
Or the too perfect page
Where the begging ideas of a book are first scratched into existence
A banned book
A truthful book

It beat like a heart that thing
Growing in the chests of all those conscious beings called human
Like a fungus that wishes to devours all
In an apocalyptic fantasy
But the heavy thing was not made up

It is the thing that consumes magic
Extinguishing it like a match meeting water
But it is also the mother to all magic everywhere
Call it Hecate
Goddess of the cross roads

Some can tell the exact moment it was placed in their chests
In the dent between your ribs

Like the girl
Whose childhood broke like glass
with a skid of tires and the silence that was louder than the scream 
A growing up that started like the blood that cannot be clotted or kept

Or the boy
Who was locked away
Shaken up inside his prison
like a can of seltzer ready to explode
It started growing 
As his loneliness grew
As his restlessness grew
His wanting for more than the fake life he lead
A fever dream he woke from
In his sickness

For others though, it was harder to tell when the thing seeped in 
Maybe it had been burrowing into their cracks the whole time

Like the girl
Who never got the chance to be a child
Who solves equations and questions
A river of answers that cannot be held back
But who would not close the gap of space
Of safety 
Between her and the last thing that will announce and cement her maturity 

Or the girl
Who wraps herself in shadows
And hides in the woods
So she may escape only protection
That has ever noticed her
Because it would not let her grow
It would not let her go

However the thing got in it is here now
You have this thing in your chest
Fixed in the pit in between your ribs
Different people treat it differently
When they find it is there
Some cry or beg it to leave
It listens to none
Some fill it with laughter or try to drown it out with sound
It will stay no matter distracted you are
Some find any scrap of information so they may fight it, extract it, purge themselves of it
But it is not the need for knowledge
Some hug it close and use it as fuel for anger or power or hate
You can use it for 1,000 things
But it will never be used up
Some feed it anything it desires
But what happens when it wants pain an death and people
What will you do then
Some even give it this
But they do not see
It’s not evil