Poking and pinching our skin like birds plucking feathers—pulling out their identity. Constantly criticizing, comparing, implementing tyrannical tactics, self-inflicted derision—we are own authoritarians. We are desperately squeezing, writhing, wriggling into the holes and molds constructed by a warped society who views beauty through superficiality. Society who designs and confines and creates its own lines that, if crossed, break the connection, forever shattering our identification with the majority, popularity—the thing we are taught to seek without chance to question the foundation of these seemingly inherent beliefs. And we are pink and tender like birds broiled, presented, stripped bear and embellished with glazes and dressings, carved to perfection. Perfection, in lipstick—on bathroom floors—we stare, at scales, forever our eyes are cast down, on curling toes, shying away from the numbers and standards and “where do I fit?”—on this number line, through this length of time, where I wander and adhere to the brick wall—a mantle piece, a mantle piece. Steadfast and granite for you to pause and stare at me, but the eyes are too many, too cold and stinging, the scorching the shaking the rage and the breaking—the breaking, a sudden release. A fall to the wooden floor with the age spots and the scuff marks, the cracks and the creaks—the beauty in pieces that nip the wrist and ***** the blood, and the air is surprising and clean against the wound that leads to the truth.