#some good old fashioned needle fatigue. worth it but woof

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

amateur shipwright union

don’t you want to examine the ship of theseus yourself

what wouldn’t you give to run your hands along its boughs

to catch splinters with the cold calculation of a dmv inspector

blood spattering into the skin of the original; the indistinguishable replaced

to guide wood from your palms and back into the whole, the great doppelgänger

a body so painstakingly cared for it has ceased to be itself

something so completely refurnished it’s ceased to be the original

a body so overburdened by time, so overwhelmed by care and new parts

organs and skin and eyes and brain something in the synapses that senses something wrong

that knows it can’t be the whole

that is itself and yet cannot be the original

a copy so complete you have ceased to be the copy

dressed in the life of a man you can’t ever speak to again

wearing his face and toenails and personality quirks

something so near to complete preservation

if you ignore which one of you was born of a womb

if you do not contemplate how much of your body you have to retain to remain yourself

(you are a copy so exact that in living you’ve killed your mother)

your mother and twin and original and double

and everyone but you seem sure which one you are

(one of you was the double and even if the other one was still alive)

(your adversary was your double, was a horrid reflection of you in everything but blood volume

(when there was two, the other was the double)

now there's just you

now there is a grave and mound of flesh and one of you is still moving

and you’re not entirely sure which one is which anymore