Your consciousness flickers in. Noise and quiet battle each other and fuse, settling into the back of your mind. Waking, they call it. You call it not getting enough sleep.
(click:"not getting enough sleep")[Getting up, you stumble through the gloom. It's an early hour, but the soft light has begun to seep into your quarters wherever it may. You pass by the mirror and stop. You are a shadowed mass, unrecognizable. It occurs to your stirring mind that there is only one thing to do.
Step closer and [[look]].]You look at your body.
Your (cycling-link: bind $eyes, "shadowed", "distant", "sparkling", "wide") eyes
[[Yes|Eyes]](if: $eyes is "shadowed")[You've always liked the dark. It's peaceful, quiet. The unknown cannot scare you because you are the unknown and it is you. From the shadows you watch, crowds enamoured by the light and oblivious to what's around them.
[[You could never understand|look2]]](else-if: $eyes is "distant")[Your thoughts aren't here, even as you look at yourself. Always somewhere distant, deeper. People say you're a dreamer. But dreams imply fantasy, longing. Unreality.
[[What you see is far from imagined|look2]]](else-if: $eyes is "sparkling")[There is a spark in you. You are delight and anger and sorrow. You are to suffer and to scream, to enjoy and to laugh, to experience midnights and daylights. Intense does not describe it.
[[You are so much and you are bursting|look2]]](else-if: $eyes is "wide")[Are you surprised? Or merely looking? People sometimes laugh at a joke you haven't made when you gaze their way. It has made you popular, but misunderstood. "Such big eyes you have."
[[All the better to see you with|look2]]](else:)[This is a variable error.
[[Continue anyway|look2]]]You look at your body.
Your $eyes eyes
Your (cycling-link: bind $hair, "shaved", "cropped", "curly", "long") hair
[[Yes|Hair]](if: $hair is "shaved")[Hair gets in the way. You are utilitarian, function over form. Apparently it's intimidating - you can only take that as a compliment. You don't need ribbons or bows to show who you are. But secretly, your favorite part of it all is when it's time to shave your hair again. You make sure to check all over for any long patches.
[[You love the feeling|look3]]](else-if: $hair is "cropped")[Style requires maintenance. Rarely do you go a month or more without a trim, gaining compliments from those close to you. It's something you take pride in. When a top is worn, it is washed. Holes are mended or a reason for discard.
[[You do not let weeds grow in your garden|look3]]](else-if: $hair is "curly")[Jealously abounds from your hair. Many wish for the body, the texture. They do not see the frizz or the combs. The shampoo, the specialty products. You love and hate it based upon how long it demands tribute. But they wish they had your hair.
[[They may not wish that if they knew|look3]]](else-if: $hair is "long")[Down to your back. Then your waist. Soon, your mid-thighs and then ankles. You can braid and tie and knot. Clips and bows, all part of your ensemble, as is your wont. Your hair is a wild meadow or curated garden depending upon your wishes.
[[You are a statement|look3]]](else:)[This is a variable error.
[[Continue anyway|look3]]]You look at your body.
Your $eyes eyes
Your $hair hair
Your (cycling-link: bind $body, "muscular", "soft", "chitinous", "perfect") body
[[Yes|Body]](if: $body is "muscular")[A flex reveals hardness under soft skin. What others find taxing, you love - the aches and heaviness before a deep sleep, the relief of a cooling shower, endorphins extracted from body and soul. Effort begets results. An ache leads to growth.
[[You feel unstoppable|look4]]](else-if: $body is "soft")[There is a joy to your shape. A love for life oozes out of you, soft embracing folds that create the perfect hug. They tell of a hearty dinner, of dance and laughter. The simmer of chemistry and lust. In the late afternoon, you lay for no one's pleasure but your own - unless you're so inclined.
[[It is not excess to savor life's delights|look4]]](else-if: $body is "chitinous")[Your rigidity astounds people. Hardness protects soft, with only joints vulnerable to piercing. Spiracles dot your body, with a steady flow of oxygen filling you from all sides. Close and then release. A new breath from all of you. Your observe, with pride, the shining might of your exoskeleton.
[[You shed quite recently|look4]]](else-if: $body is "perfect")[It is not without cause you describe yourself like this. Your perfection is hard won, a reflection of exercise, lifestyle and medical intervention. And now people marvel at your effortless grace. It was a long transition to become what you are now. Finally, your old self is merely a figment you have ascended from.
[[You are art|look4]]](else:)[This is a variable error.
[[Continue anyway|look4]]]You look at your body.
Your $eyes eyes
Your $hair hair
Your $body body
Your (cycling-link: bind $hands, "scarred", "manicured", "stained", "busy") hands
[[Yes|Hands]](if: $hands is "scarred")[The materials you work with are finicky and sometimes sharp. They don't bite on purpose, but bite they do. Your scars are old, now. You've learned better than to grab without looking. But you do get nicked once in a blue moon.
[[Sometimes the wounds ache at night|look5]]](else-if: $hands is "manicured")[These are hands that don't know physical labor. Soft, pretty and sometimes colorful. What you touch is not made for hurting. What you hold is envied. Your admire yourself often, for you are to be admired.
[[And others agree|look5]]](else-if: $hands is "stained")[There is color ground under your fingernails. You have washed them twice, thrice, but no water will get rid of them. The physical evidence of your works mark your being with a wanton stubbornness. Just as you cannot be removed from what you create, it cannot so easily be removed from you.
[[Parent and child intertwined|look5]]](else-if: $hands is "busy")[Fingers drum and tap. Rubbed hands shed dead skin. Always, there is something - something to do, something to say. Idling has no use to you. You cannot stand silence without movement. In the night, you mourn its emptiness without music or life.
[[You must work until it is done|look5]]](else:)[This is a variable error.
[[Continue anyway|look5]]]You look at your body.
Your $eyes eyes
Your $hair hair
Your $body body
Your $hands hands
Your (cycling-link: bind $feet, "cloven", "digitigrade", "clawed", "cybernetic") feet
[[Yes|Feet]](if: $feet is "cloven")[A foot crushes the undergrowth. Eventually, dirt shows. A desire path, then a holloway. Meadows and forests welcome your hooves as you walk along trails traced by your ancestors, baskets of offerings hanging from the branches above with small lights.
[[A welcome memory of home|look6]]](else-if: $feet is "digitigrade")[No one is without an animalistic element to them. Here, where final forms are a suggestion, you have no interest in preserving your humanity - if you had any in the first place. Eyes and tails and ears are only some of the few myrid paths you may walk. Some go without, some with all.
[[Your personal spells are quite intricate|look6]]](else-if: $feet is "clawed")[Your talons dig into the ground, grip fast to the sheer rock. You climb, perch, observe. You live in both darkness and open air. Below, all look like ants. Do you see a glint of metal? Perhaps some patiently earned prey?
[[You prepare to strike|look6]]](else-if: $feet is "cybernetic")[There is no silence here. You are only minutes away from a crowd or total isolation at any given time, and the neon and shadowed streets match the mood. You hear the steady thrum of ships, forced air, broadcasts and music. You, too, add to the cacophany with your own hums and clicks.
[[A living orchestra|look6]]](else:)[This is a variable error.
[[Continue anyway|look6]]]You look at your body.
Your $eyes eyes
Your $hair hair
Your $body body
Your $hands hands
Your $feet feet
Is this your body?
[[Yes]]
[[No]][[Finally]]Then [[look]] againPleasure seeps into your expression. A rightness. Yes, this is you. And it is right. In the world outside there are many other things you could be. You can see them like ghosts, gathering and dispering with the tides. But they are not you, and you do not need them to be.
The only thing you need to be is [[you]].And so you are.
(after: 3s)[Make My Body, an experimental twine by mothmouth]
(after: 5s)[Proofreading by bumblepaws]
(after: 7s)[[[Replay?|Make My Body]]]