Voices in Humanism
Hold still and wear bright colors
Don’t listen to what anyone else has to say about you or to you or with you or for you. You have nothing to
worry about, sweets, it’s just the second coffee you drank that’s making your heart race and your stomach
roll up like a sleeping bag. You didn’t do anything wrong! How could you? You were born bright and shining
innocence, with a love around you so big you haven’t ever been able to find its edges, it’s always hugged you
so tight that you could hardly move around your world. You are a hero. A protagonist! Everybody loves you!
Why are you being chased? Who knows? Some people just like to chase sweet little things like you.
You run and run until you’re ragged. The cold air slides over the insides of your lungs like sandpaper, you
must have blooming spots of blood in your perfect pink lungs and you cough it up and your chest hurts. And
still they don’t leave you alone. Nobody else knows you like I do. They don’t know how good you are and how much you care. Look how much you’ve done for people! They’re trying to take a gorgeous golden textured little piece of you for no reason at all, no reason at all. No reason at all. You didn’t do anything wrong.
Why are they chasing for no reason? That doesn’t make any sense! Some people like to deny you the things
you deserve. You were born into this world and you deserve things and that’s what you’re getting, there’s no sense in asking why they want to take it from you. Just keep running whenever you need to, sweets, it’ll stop eventually, because things that don’t make sense don’t keep happening for very long.
Do they?
It’s still happening. You’re being attacked and the blood keeps coming up into your mouth like an iron stake
on your tongue and the bright red makes violent flowers on your perfectly clean tissue. You have to keep
tissues in your pocket now. Sometimes they crawl out of your pocket and are left to the wind while you run.
You don’t have time to pick up after yourself anymore? Ridiculous. You deserve everything! And yet, your
lungs plume up blood and you can’t hold still hardly at all anymore.
You’ve been caught?
The piece was taken from you then, I suppose?
It wasn’t golden, was it?
It was dark, sticky, and inspissated, brown and red and black. You’re disgusted by it. Aren’t you? Has it been
inside of you this whole time?
Of course it has.
You thought you were a hero. And you’ve been chased, had blood and sweat and life and ragged breath given for you, had magic spent on you, because you kept running away. You thought you were being denied your freedom. Now you understand that you can’t ever be free unless the truth is violently rooted out of you so you can see. See yourself as you were before in your bright colors, standing still, unknowing. And see the love and healing that was gifted to you in the chase.
Abby Madden
Class of 2021
Ohio State University College of Medicine
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