You’ve been taken apart and put back together by strangers with blown-out pupils and steady fingers since you were a child. Each time, you feel like a little less than you were before, like a little piece of you is missing—maybe you don’t take up as much space as you once did, maybe you’re a few cells short. It’s hard to tell where you are when you have absolutely no idea where you used to be.
You wonder what they’re thinking about, The Strangers. You wonder about their vision—whether or not it’s mapped out and tucked away in their back pocket, whether or not they have one at all—as they rummage through your bolts and screws and wiring.
They handle your vital parts (eyes, heart, brain) carelessly, so carelessly, placing them on the backburner until they’ve composed the perfect shell to fit them in. No, you want to say, please take care of me, I’d take care of you. And you’ve lost so many pieces along the way you’re no longer sure if it’s a lie.
It is on nights like these that you realize you’re damaged goods. That your heart is a little misshaped and your brain is a little more bruised than it was last week when you met The Man with wiry eyelashes and copper wrists (when you slipped into his grasp, his toolbox—when you let him prod you with worn-down screwdrivers and measuring tapes with sharp edges. This was the first time you realized you’ve been a copy of a thousand people that were never you).
Some days, you wish you had been given the blueprints to your body, your mind, on the day you were born. This is how you are supposed to look. This is how you are supposed to speak. This is who you are supposed to be. Maybe then you would still be a whole person rather than loose screws and missing bolts.
