soup🌱

and, whether by your careful touch or my layered wear, your work goes unnoticed, and yet it doesn’t. i feel you, though i don’t, not as i understand it, not as i have ever felt. the presence of your hand – each muscle and tendon, contracting, extending, manipulating wrist, fingers, joints, yours - its softness, its care. your presence inside of me, i feel it ever deepen, incomprehensibly so. and thus i feel you work. softly, you tear me into pieces.

but i don’t understand the attention you give to each piece of my decommissioned body. you run each wire gently between your fingertips and with care you repair me, reconnect me anew, clip each rusted, rotting part from my chassis and replace it, pristine. you untangle my twisted internals and in return they twist around you, your delicate touch, intricately working, now interwoven, pulled into me. you hold each piece of me as though it could shatter. you treat me so softly. i am a machine designed and created for war: sturdy, persistent, self-sustaining.

and yet, here you kneel, holding my heart with careful hands, gently, dearly, nursing me to life.

and yet, as your hands leave my hollow core each time, i ache.

you wipe away old grease between the seams of my plating, and i can feel you get carried away, slowly, softly, tracing the lines of my body. every angle, every corner, every curve. every part of me. my rust. my breaks. it feels as though not an inch goes untouched, untended. why do you take care of me so?

divine, yet you use your light on me. not even mortal, an afterthought, created by the free will that damned them, of steel, of sin. and still, despite such objectionable existence, here you kneel. why?

why do you care and why do i let you?

why do i sit here, my heart exposed, letting you see into me, each detail of my making, of my being, the routing of each cable into each socket, the pipes fueling my hydraulics, my inner-workings, and why do i let you rearrange me, poke around my delicate circuitry, why do i let you in? i wasn’t made for this. i wasn’t made for you. i don’t know if i care.

as you gently press the last piece of me into place, it clicks, and through the quiet air i can hear you breathe. your scarred chest rises, falls, and rises once more as you stare expectantly into my core. i feel your hand linger inside. you feel different, vivid. like your heart is my own i feel it beat, blood racing through your body. and i twitch. my fans whirr at nothing, my pumps spur to life, and i feel warm. warmer than ever before, with your hand in my chest, against me, inside me, a part of me.

i look down at you, the glow of my visor lights up your face, the low thrum of my body fills the silence.

you look up at me, at me.

i don’t want you to let go. i grab your wrist with both hands, holding it in place against my beating, ticking heart, and this newfound warmth continues to grow. what did you do to me?

please don’t let go.

you avert your gaze and i pain, my grip tightening on you. my whole body tightening in on itself. but you don’t let go. your hand remains still against my body, my chest, my heart, heating, heating up with every moment you stay.

you look back into me, your finished work, your palm against, and mine.

time pauses.

i don’t know what you think.

but in the stillness i feel your grace, your presence, gently against my metal, held onto your flesh. you place your empty hand on mine.

you don’t look back up into my visor, but i feel your warmth course through me and my body relax, my fear subside.

we sit there, in emptiness, accompanied only by the quiet, constant sounds of our bodies.