Sometimes I feel as if I was created in a lab.
I feel as if my bones were perfectly splintered into place,
grinding into my tender flesh,
cracking and breaking with every breath I try to take.

Sometimes I feel as if my heart was purposely made too big,
too wide,
too open.
They sewed it to my sleeve,
exposed it to the world,
instead of tucking it safely away beneath an ivory cage.

Sometimes I feel like I was made only to be broken,
over and over and over again.

And other times...

other times I feel as if I forged myself into this hulking beast,
shrouded by soft satin and a curling smile.

Other times I feel as if I took a hammer to my own bones,
crushing the frail porcelain over and over,
until they grew stronger,
until they resembled steel.

Other times I feel as if my heart was ripped from my chest by my own clawed finger,
drug out bloody and raw in a violent act of resistance,
offered out as a form of protest,
to show the world that I am still alive.

Other times I feel as if I created myself a martyr to be sacrificed,
over and over and over again.

Sometimes I am a god, and other times machine.

At all times, every time, I am me.