It started quietly, as most epidemics do.
A few victims, holes in the crowd; no one really notices them even when they're gone.
The same was true for me.

They saw that I was weak; they targeted me for pretending that I wasn't. It was a challenge to their superiority, and any rebellion must be culled.
This rebel could have caused an uproar, so they slipped a virus in my mouth
pressed my lips together
force-fed me poison
made me swallow
and watched my insides burn.

It locked onto my vocal cords, strangled me from the inside.
It gathered my heartstrings into angry fistfuls and knotted them together- made every heartbeat a struggle,
every beat beat beat a fight.
It burned my veins and severed my arteries, bleeding me out to the last aching drop.

They didn't understand the extent of the suffering they put me through.
I don't believe they would care either way.
I was silenced.
I was broken.
They broke me to pieces.

They dug my grave and left me at the precipice without the power to even stand or cry for help.
What was I supposed to do?
My knees buckled; I fell in.

They broke me, but they did not bury me.
I collected those pieces from the toiled, raw ground where they were meant to stay,
pick pick picked until my fingertips bled,
and put myself back together again.
After all, they'd bled all the sickness out with the rest of me.

The question became:
Who am I now?