Human Museum

Empty...

Silent sculpture

Carved into diamonds

Glittering

Sparkling

With the rays of light

An audience gathers

Admiring lovers

Pointing

Expressions of awe

Sketched onto worn faces

The love in their eyes

The wonder

As they stare

And take pictures

Empty...

Perfect painting

Aligned symmetrically

Colourful and pretty

Hanging on walls

And guided by frames

So elaborately decorated

Displayed for all eyes

To devour

To study

People standing quietly

Curiousity sparking

Pondering abstract meanings

As they stare

And take pictures

Empty emotions

No comprehension

Of the awe and splendor

Surrounding them

The sculpture and painting

Live in the museum

So extravagent and gorgeous

Without even realizing

As they exist in lost sensation

A broken mineral

A scribbled doodle

Hollow inside

For they are not what they portray

A sculpture is molded by steady hands

...That are not its own

A painting is blended by predestined brushstrokes

...That it has not chosen

So the sculpture and painting have no reason

To feel emotions

For the role they are forced into

By the ideals and visions of an artist

As such,

A human wearing a mask

Cannot comprehend

The emotions of the facade they portray

Though it seems to be all they know

Often, we wear costumes

Casted into stereotypes and roles

Act on stages society builds for us

Puppets on woven string

Admiring smiles and loving expressions

As the audience applauds

As they stare

And take pictures

Without knowing our inner emotion,

Without understanding our meaning and purpose,

How can we be anything

But hollow versions of ourselves

That have gone completely numb?

The longer we live, the more superficial we get

In the chains of the human museum

Sculpted and painted by the ideals of others

And not our own potential.