The dictionary defines humanity as benevolence

Compassion

Kindness

Tolerance

The word, humanity sends up sprays of rainbows after it conquers the rain and coaxes the bashful sun back out

It’s the last to take flight in Pandora’s box

The first to latch onto our hearts when Tragedy swoops in and delivers a coup de grâce, eyes blazing with destruction

It’s the equivalent of a panacea

It mends the open sores and scars of the wounded

Duct tapes broken hearts and superglues friendship

The word sketches images of us, coexisting together under the sun

It brushes strokes onto the tidal waves of gratitude and appreciation for the mundane

Humanity can be compared to a resplendent, vivid canvas hung on a wall for all to admire

Or should I say, it could have been

Because frankly, the letters, H-U-M-A and N does not belong anywhere in humanity anymore

There is no humanity in humans

We’ve tainted the word beyond recognition

We’ve washed it brown with the dirt crammed under the haggard fingernails of those suffering in poverty

Grey with the blades used to plunge through skin and extinguish the soul

Blue with the people who exist without really living; drowning in oxygen yet still here

We’ve doused humanity in red with the blood of people who don’t deserve to die

And purple with the bruises left on the ones still alive

Humans don’t have an ounce of humanity left in our systems

What with the cold shoulders we lend one another and the way we only see the world in black and white-

And green, if you know what I mean

We now live in a world

Where parents microwave their infants

Where love ends too often with a visit from Death

Where our values are placed on all the wrong things

Where the human body is treated like a dog’s chew toy,

Where bullying is alive

Like a virus, searching for victims to infect and kill

And the people who can stop it, don’t

Because of the fear of being touched by the dirtied hands of experienced tormentors when we, ourselves, are impure

There is no humanity in humans

We, are heartless creatures