The Robot by Galen Stoeber

The Robot by Galen Stoeber I've been a robot. I had to be cause he broke me twice. I found some strength and made a decision to keep going till I could reassemble my parts. You came along and knowing I wasn't whole I tried. I tried giving myself to you but over time your tongue slapped my cheek, your words spit in my ear. Why would I curse you when you've done it for me with every word you hurt me with. Those hurtful actions blew what bones I had left apart. What did I ever do to deserve that? Did I do something wrong by trying to make it work for us? Don't you remember the tears you shed for me telling me to stay? Saying that your a jerk. Wanting to come with me and then before the absolute end you didn't want to loose me? Ignore you, I tried cause I thought it would work like you said. Did you daydream like I did about the life we'd have and the things we would do? I made you more important then myself and would think of things to say and ask. Then my strength inside that was left asked if I could ever forgive you? Could I spend my life with you after you wrecked me more then I already was? I was a hollow shell of a robot that couldn't see my parts around me that had broken off. All that was in me was hope. Today that hope inside just saw all the things I am made of that had fallen off. One piece was skating so my shell glued it where my thigh should be. I saw the dancer and put it where my other thigh would be and then like magic all my pieces had come back together. What I can see now shows how over the years of skating make the roundness of my ass, dancing made the curves of my back. Don't you see that all of my life has made my shell look this way? My eyes, my heart and my brain that knows are back where they should be. 10 years ago did you think this is how it would end? My thoughts I was left with asked if I could forgive you and like magic I was made whole again cause my answer is no and I'm me again. No longer feeling like a robot but a whole human being that is what you see now. Those tears I cried you couldn't see are gone. In me is an artist that makes my soul. Through movement that piece used a paragraph from Wuthering Heights that goes, "He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears." The beast inside me screamed and cried to purge the pain to make me not a robot but an artist that makes my bones. Family is what makes my heart. My heart lives by a quote from lyrics I heard on the show Nashville that goes, "Lord I pray, I want a life that's good." Can you see me now? I'm not a robot but me that has so many parts. Skin that covers all my pieces. Did you see under the skin to find all of the things I am? You never knew all of me cause you never asked. He saw them though. He would touch all of them just by saying, "Hi." He said good bye and felt like a robot since. I hoped you would see all the pieces blown apart. Your eyes could only see me as the hollow robot I thought I was. Did your eyes daydream like my shell did? When he said goodbye the second time it exploded all my parts and made me feel I was this hollow robot. My robot remembers all the loves and the one that got away from me. I've been guilty of causing hurt and pain and blowing loves apart, you're not the only that can cause robots to exist. I still feel like a robot but I can see all the parts of me that I put back together today. I feel truly happy and whole as of now. Those tears the beast shed healed my robot and glued together the pieces of me where they fit. Are you a robot too?