About a year ago, I was sitting in the Ralph's parking lot with one of my suitemates and she pulled out her phone to open a note with a long list of things that she wanted to know my opinion of. Most of the topics on the list were ordinary curiosities like religion and politics, but one bullet point that was distinctly unique was "utensils." At the time, utensils didn't hold much significance in my life, other than their essential role in eating. But, as I thought about it more, I realized that utensils as a deeper concept reflect a core aspect of human nature. Utensils fall into the greater category of "tools," which have been invented for centuries with the hope of assisting the survival of the human race. There wasn't a need for tools until we came into self-consciousness, realizing that we aren't enough to survive on our own, especially in competition with other human beings and animals. This illuminates the ideas of intellect, power, and fear as side effects of coming into self-consciousness. We spend our time on earth creating survival tools and arguing about where we came from, where we are going, and which is the best way to get there. Being abroad I have encountered many different religions and cultures, and experiencing different values has helped me to refine my ideas on "utensils." I wrote this poem as a meditation on these concepts.

Consider the evolution of utensils

The human race had no use for a spoon until we looked at our hands

And realized that we were cracks in our capacity to survive.

Fracture filled by reason and stimulated by fear—

Empathy feels so much like hunger to those who surrender their

omniscience.

We are all abstractions of a particular thing.

The fork as an extension of our fingertips does not understand futility.

Pride introduces itself to paranoia,

And we shake hands and celebrate war,

To prove to ourselves that our being is something to defend,

And that we were not manufactured by metaphors

Or accidents.

Knives are not an extension of our hands,

But a revelation of our misguided rationality—

Irrationality—

God sheds light on the forms and illuminates intellect,

Like moths, we cannot resist the curiosity that draws us closer to the fire.

Confrontation is an inevitable regression of self-consciousness.

And gravity is a side effect of black holes.

The questions that surround our origin lead us deeper into the darkness,

And further away from faith that exists somewhere in our memory

Of before we knew what hunger felt like.