Work Text:
You are 4 months old.
They take your teeth. Pull them out one by one. You hear them dropping into the metal pan next to you in bed. They take your tongue. It leaves your mouth empty. Somehow dry.
Your body is not your body. You are not your own.
You are 5 months old.
They shave your head and cut your skull. They poke around inside your head. They slice something and your emotions are muted, softened, gone.
Your mind is not your mind. You are not your own.
You are 7 months old.
They take your eye. Pry it from your head and leave the socket empty and dry. They take your arm and pick it apart in front of you. Dissect the nerves, pull the tendons until your fingers twitch. You shouldn't still feel it. You do.
Your body is not your body. You are not your own.
You are 8 months old.
You are dead but you are alive. You can see it happen, your eye in a jar next to you, as they catalog your organs. Set them out on the table one by one. Label them for study.
Your body is not your body. You are gone.
You are another child. You are 8 years old.
They strap you to a table. They fill your veins with molten lead. It burns and burns and burns. You want to scream but your lungs can't get enough air in them.
Your body is not your body. You are not your own.
You are 10 years old.
They train you to fight. They give you a gun. They make you violent and unforgiving. They tell you this is the only way. It makes you scared of what you are capable of. There is so much blood on your hands.
Your mind is not your mind. You are not your own.
You have forgotten how old you are.
They feed you vials that knit you back together. They make your organs shift and move. They make your flesh close like magic. They make you afraid of what you are. They make you afraid of what you might be later. You don't know if it is better to be sewn back together by them or left split open. You take another.
Your body is not your body. You have to keep going.
You still don't remember who you are.
He looks right through you. He sees the nasty, twitching cancer and rot in your body. You are exposed. You are split open. He sees, he sees, he sees and that makes you sick. Why doesn't it make him sick to look?
He sees and he wants you to stay.
Your body is not your body. But if he wants it, he can have it. You are not your own.