I Am the Same

It wasn't a matter of what changed. It was more along the lines of who I left behind.
Seeming more like a phantom in the distance, shrouded in a mist of sweet smelling memories.
Not as much a part of me as it was another ‘me’. Not as far away as past but far enough to look a stranger.

Not that I'd look back, or forward it seems, since a face as calm and collected as that would bring me back to tears. “For shame,” some did say, “You poor thing. You'll never be the same.”

But I am the same.

Or perhaps a clone, better described as a replica with similar arms and legs and curvature and teeth and eyes. A perfect model, hollow within, just in case it tried to come alive.

Although at times it feels to me that I ought to forget I had a name, and take on the role of the reanimated corpse, a monster who prowls and roams with little to call his own. No name for me, no name for her. We were just figurines bent this way and that, warped into awkward dimensions that left us aching in pain.

But toys don’t feel. I'd best not call it pain for fear that I might be replaced with another doll on the assembly line, waiting with an eager and innocent smile.

Invincible.

Seemingly in relation to the ‘me’ I left behind, to the one who may as well be the original.

For I am just a reduced ‘me’. Less willing, less cheery, more aware, more scared.

Second best. Runner up. Losing, but still playing the game.

There, but not all there. Lost, but not quite insane.

And yet here I am. I am the same.

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