What is a person?

That which we perceive is an illusion.

Regardless of what you believe,

In one sense it's no more than chemical fusion.

Protein, fat, and carbohydrates,

All part of this entity we call a being.

Each with a unique identity,

I look and wonder what I'm seeing.

The attractiveness is strictly inherited.

The divine curves I see in a woman,

Which so unnerve,

Wouldn't raise an eyebrow in one not human.

I look at my hand.

I see not part of me, but a piece of meat,

Foreign to my reality.

Looking stranger than donkey's ears or chicken's feet.

I saw a dead body.

I tried to understand what was gone,

I touched the cold hand.

Inert matter, it looked so much like the person I'd known.

There is some unknown force.

A strong fragile spark that propels this flesh,

Illuminates the dark

Unliving clay, creating consciousness.

The whole is not the sum of the parts.

Some quintessence is all when it's giving,

But lacking that presence,

The most perfect collection of matter is unliving.