Unravel 
 
They gave me a name I couldn't pronounce,  
clinging to me  
like a delicate dress too tight at the seams,  
stitched for someone else's skin.  
 
I wore it anyway, smiled for the bloodline,  
hoping the fabric would learn my shape.  
Crumpling my voice behind my ribs  
became the silence they learned to live with.  
 
Some nights, I'd loosen the zipper  
just enough to breathe in a new name,  
in a language that didn't bruise.  
My soul so radiant, Midas would be jealous.  
 
By morning, I'd zip myself back in.  
Neatly pressed, practiced, not a hair out of place,  
a mannequin draped in their comfort.  
I was almost what they wanted. 
—  
 
Outside, the machine whirred in uniforms and laws, pressed seams and polished shoes. All protocol.  
Its code unmoved by minority heartbeat or history.  
Every silence we gave repurposed against us.  
 
And it starts to feel familiar.  
Cold steel walls now threaded with pulsing veins,  
heritage stitched, algorithm welded to my decaying skin.  
Now, when I speak, the whirring and whispers falter.  
 
The world still spins, but I'm no longer frozen.  
No wiring in my nerves, no weaving through my ribs.  
I sanctified my path through the wreckage with defiance.  
Even exile has a glow if you never stop moving.