Human Nature

wrote after seeing the cruelty experienced in Fredrick Douglass

Human Nature.

It is this evil, wretched thing,

half formed by those it devours,

with a golden glint

twinkling ceaselessly in its eye.

It knows no mirrors,

nor its own voice.

All it sees is twisted glimpses,

punctuated by blinks,

of the world around it.

Like an abused infant,

it wails out in unknowing fear:

at beauty,

at love,

at any voice that speaks up

out of the dark.