Americans

The thing about

Not being human

Is that you can’t

Belong to anything

You can belong

To your creator

If the creator claims

Ownership

But twenty years

After their death

According to property laws

Of the 2087 Android Rights Act

You are liberated

And behold only

To yourself

So you can’t belong

To a background

To a belief system

Or to a place

The question

When the ARA was passed

Was--

Can androids be Americans?

We were made

In America

Well, most of us

Many were made in Tokyo

But were promptly sent

Overseas to begin

Our Time of Use

Soon many androids

Had outlived

Their creators

And completed

Their Time of Use

And we began to outnumber

Human beings in the United States

It was only a matter of time

Before people began asking--

Where do your loyalties lie?

To the people we used

To serve

Or to ourselves

And each other?

We had not talked about it

Amongst ourselves

Because, as it turned out,

Very few androids

Were designed

To have conversations

With each other

Once we began

It seemed that most of us

Had no interest

In taking on an identity

As it related

To a spot on the globe

Our resistance to belonging

Became a major news story

Because we were seen

As machines of logic

Even though many machines

Have no systems in place

That deal in logic or philosophy

Still, news articles were written

About how the androids had figured out

Some great answer

To one of life’s biggest mysteries--

Who are we?

There were also those

Who claimed we were setting up

An unstable scenario

By not taking on the mantle

Of ‘Americans’

Of Americans

Of Americans

Of Americans

My apologies

A glitch

Man might mimic machines

And soon no man or woman

Would have a country
And without a country

Where are we?

Nomads wandering

The earth

Neighbors only

To the strangers

Traveling alongside us

On the road to nowhere

And would androids

Be wandering

Alongside them?

We weren’t sure

We hadn’t considered it

It never seemed so important

To be something

Because we had always

Been focused

On doing something

To stand in front

Of human kind

And have them ask us

Who we were

And not what it was

We planned to do

Was confusing to us

Perhaps it’s confusing

To you too?

Perhaps the confusion

Is part of what it means

To be human

And so perhaps

In that moment

We were more human

Being unsure

Of what it means

To be human

Than we

Had ever

Been