POEME: Masters and Slaves

Masters and Slaves

I,
Homo, s.

My surname, Homo,
now belongs only to me.
I have killed all my siblings.
Homo e, Homo n, Homo f.
And many more.

I have also killed
many more of my half-siblings.  And cousins.
And I am in the process of killing many,
many, many more.
My mother, doesn't anger easily.
But, I think, she is slowly losing her cool.
The other day, I heard her complaining,
to the perennially angry, Venus Aunty.
Hyperventilating, Aunty Venus advised,
"Gaia, you have given this one son too much liberty.
He is killing all your other children."

"No, Sister, he is not.
He is just too stupid
to know how he is being manipulated.

"See, he thinks he is an individual.
He thinks he is in control.
Of himself.
Of his siblings and half-siblings.
And of me.
But he is not." 

I was left wondering.
I take pride in my individuality.
But then,
am I really an individual?
Which parts of me
do not talk
to the other parts of me?
Which ones irreplaceable,
upon the pain of 'I' becoming non-'I'?
My liver
when it talks to my heart
upon my consuming alcohol,
ensuring it change its parameters accordingly,
it is not me, is it?
It does not do so at my command, does it?

Each tissue,
each cell in my body
is its own master.
Even the stories that
I tell myself are.

My genes,
or perhaps, the genes that I am the slave of,
dictate all my activities.
And they work with the stories,
the memes
that take away any sliver of freedom, that I might still have.
I, their,
genes' and memes' slave,
do their bidding.
Most importantly,
keeping them alive
with my actions, my speech, my thoughts.
I run and kill those
who are driven by rival memes,
so that my masters, my memes survive,
not the others.  And then,
I run and have sex, so that my other masters,
my genes survive.

And they have all kinds of arrangements
with all these other masters.
Memes of religion, nation, passions live on.
Between themselves,
they divvy me up.

And genes?
They even have truck
with their other sisters,
which I am told are my slaves.
But guess what, my masters, my genes
work with those of Triticum and Gallus gallus domesticus,
and together,
they ensure that I spend every living breath spreading them.
Triticum fellows need not worry.
Their value-add to my masters, my genes
comes only upon their having lived their lives,
and gifting away some of their seed.
Something akin to when I serve others
what they call a blow job.
Sad is the lot of domesticus 'individuals'...
just a few days of so-called life,
jailed in a coop,
and off to the butchers.

But seriously,
am I any better,
reproducing at breakneck speed,
only to eventually break backs and necks,
all in the service of Homo sapiens genes!

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(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).