“The Human Equation” by Wes Scott

My eyes are closed
And my ears are open
But I hear nothing.
The wind rushes past me
And whips through my hair.
My hands are open, unclenched,
Hanging at my sides.
My legs are straight,
Supporting me,
Holding me up.
I am standing.

My heart thumps in my chest,
Sending the blood coursing through my veins.
I have gallons of blood in my body,
Full of little circle-shaped red blood cells
And their counterparts, the white blood cells,
Swimming in a stream of plasma.
All of us together have enough blood
To fill all of the world’s lakes
And all of the world’s oceans.
My heart beats tens of thousands of times a day,
A few millions of times a month,
Tens of millions of times a year,
And hundreds of millions in my lifetime.
One after the other
After the other
Over and over.
Without fail.

I breathe in deeply and the air enters my lungs,
Sending life-giving oxygen into my bloodstream
While expelling the waste.
I exhale CO2—
A very misunderstood gas.
It gives life to a nearby tree
Who takes it in and, in return,
Gives me back oxygen.
My nose is a filter, siphoning out those pesky particles
That would hinder the operations of my lungs.
Like a filter cleans drinking water.
My lungs, like my heart,
Work thousands of times every day.
Without fail.
I breathe in.
I breathe out.
All day
Every day.

I open my eyes
And light pounds their surface.
It enters and is decoded,
Producing an image.
I see.
My eyelids close
And then reopen.
I blink.
This keeps my eyes moist
So they can continue to function.
I don’t need to tell them to do this.
They do it by themselves.
Many thousands of times a day.
They must be acquainted with my heart
And my lungs.
I blink and I see.

All of these operations
Are controlled by a single server—
My brain.
It is a strange looking thing,
Encased inside of a think helmet
Of bone called the cranium.
Electric signals race across
Its wrinkled and furrowed surface.
Its inner machinations are still an enigma.
Different parts for different things,
Different thoughts.
It controls me.
All of me.
It tells my heart to beat.
It tells me to breathe.
It tells my eyes to blink.
It tells my leg to move
When I take a step.
It tells my arm to move,
When I open the door.
It tells my finger to press
When I click the mouse.
It controls it all.
All of the systems
All of the parts
All of organs
All of the cells
All of the DNA.
And all of this is
Made of atoms
And these of subatomic particles.

I look down at my hands,
And watch my fingers move.
I look down at my legs and feet.
They are moving as I step,
Continuing onwards
Without a command.
I feel…distant.
My body is here
But I am somewhere else,
Disconnected.
I am living inside
A biochemical machine,
Identical to the many others
Around me.
All built around the ratio of Phi.
It works all day long,
Every day,
Over and over.
Until it eventually fails.
And it dies.
But this cannot be me.
Can that be all there is?
A body that works with
The utmost precision
Until it decides to slow down
And then stop,
Just to be buried in the ground
And forgotten?

No, there must be more.
What happens to me then?
What about consciousness
Thought, and emotion?
Logic, creativity and imagination?
Why do I have these?
What use are they for a machine?
Wouldn’t it be better off without them?
They would only hinder a machine.
Yet, I exist.
And so do many like me.
Humans defy logic
And they astound reason.
We make no sense.
No one has ever
Been able to explain it.
Why do we exist like we do?
We are unlike anything else
Alive on this planet.
Why when you look
Into someone’s eyes
Can you see a light,
Burning as bright as the sun,
But when they die,
The light is gone?
Where does it go?
And why does this light
Burn the brightest in children?
Do they know more
Than we can comprehend?

Why do I distinctly feel
Like me and my body
Are two separate entities?
Why do my waking days
Sometimes feel like a dream?
Why do my dreams
Sometimes feel as real
As when I’m awake?
And what of déjà vu?
And who came up with the number phi?
And what do we have to
Do with bees and sunflowers?
Why do I know
That we understand nothing
About existence, time and space?
What if this is all just in my head?
Am I the imagination of myself?
Or is this all just a dream?
What really exists then?
And what doesn’t?
What is this reality?
Is it reality?
What really is reality?

I inhale.
My heart beats.
My eyes blink.
I exhale.
All this reality is
Is energy.
Composed and arranged
In different ways.
Constantly changing,
Always fluctuating.
I am a vibration
In one huge mass
Of energy
That is the universe.
I am everything
And everything is me.
Then I wake up.