The Machine

I have been stabbed with nails so many times that my skin is a sheet of metal.

I lived in a five-by-five stone box with nothing but a desk and a bed.

I have woken up to a bird singing next to my head.

I managed without a sink and interior plumbing.

But it could always be worse.

I was born in a hospital and brought home to a small dark side street.

I have scars on the bottoms of my feet from walking on broken glass my whole life.

I swept the glass from the floor but shards are still embedded in my skin.

I have a hunger for knowledge that fills every crevice of my body,

Its hands reaching out and attempting to grab every shred of information it can.

I am scraps of cloth sewn together from the lives of those around me.

I wish I could treat this life as just another story.

I would give anything for my life to have been the same as those around me.

I crave a pain as simple as a single knife stabbed into my chest,

Not this strange web of needles carving a map into my flesh.

I am forged of pain and ideals.

I have skin of steel and shards of glass in my bloodstream.

On my back is the story of my life

And the stories I have collected along the way.

I wear clothes created from the lives of those around me

And I cry tears of joy.