Work Text:
I know I'm made of numbers and lines of code,
of errors.
But I don't look like it.
I look like me.
I don't have as many freckles as I used to,
and my glasses are cracked,
but my dad doesn't seem to notice that I'm a little different.
(I know he notices. I don't think he cares.)
When I came back,
I hid from a doorway, peering.
I don't know why I hid, but I think I was worried that he wouldn't recognize me.
I watched him look around the room, but when he found me,
his face changed to a kind of joy I don't think I will ever be able to describe.
He smiled, with tears in his eyes,
and I smiled back.
I don't have braces anymore,
and my front tooth is chipped when it wasn't before,
but he cries in happiness when he sees me.
I don't know
if that's a good thing.
I know he thinks I'm not his daughter.
But I wonder if he knows that I'm made of numbers.
I wonder
if he'd care.
Everybody else does.
I know that I hurt him sometimes.
That he can't feel his arm,
and that sometimes he talks with a strange
glitch,
but I really don't mean to do that.
I tell him I missed him, and he asks me where I was.
I don't remember.
Sometimes,
when I go to bed,
I see myself.
Her glasses aren't cracked
like mine,
and I know she is me, but yet,
isn't, really.
She is who I used to be,
who my code is meant to be.
I know that I'm only allowed to know that in these dreams.
I know I will forget it when I wake up.
She looks at me and whispers,
'You know you're not me.’
I don't think I understand.
She steps closer in the black surrounding void of my dream, and says,
'You're hurting my dad.'
I feel my eyes burn with tears that haven't fallen yet,
and I try to tell her that I really don't mean to.
But, when I write on my sign, the words are messed up with numbers and symbols,
illegible.
She looks sad, as if she knows what I was trying to say.
But then she smiles,
and hugs me.
I never get to hug her back,
because I always wake up before I get the chance.
Sometimes I wake up scared
and other times I wake up sad.
Sometimes,
I wake up missing her.
I don't know how you can miss yourself.
My dad looks at me, sometimes, and I can tell he thinks I'm not really his daughter.
I know that I am, even if everybody else says I'm not her.
I'm only a little different than I used to be.
I know that I am made of numbers
and code.
I know that I am made of errors,
of flaws and faults in my programming.
But I am still made of love and whatever made me, 'me', before.
Why do they look at me differently than they used to?
The only difference is that now I'm made of code.
But, I’m still her!
I still feel like her.
I still wear my glasses, even though it's hard to see through the cracks.
I'm still me.
Or, at least, I think I am.
Not even the old me,
the real me that I see in my dreams,
thinks that I’m her.
I still know how to love my parents like I used to.
I still know how to fire my gun like I used to.
But I don't think that I know how to be me.
I don't think that I really can be me.
The old me.
The real me.
I'm beginning to think the real me from my dreams was right.
I'm
not
her.
But I don't think that I know how to be anyone else.