Instead of metal, I want to be made of flesh, so that life can mar me in a way that matters – that bleeds and scabs over and turns bright pink, then deep red, and finally scars. I want to look at the burn mark on my arm and remember how I scalded myself while making dumplings with my friends, dropping them into boiling water from 3 feet up to be funny. Or point at the scar tissue on my knee and reminisce about my family's first overseas vacation, where I tripped and fell at Disneyland and spent an hour sobbing at the Happiest Place on Earth.

 

Instead of prewritten code, I want to love something so much I need it under my skin, seared into my flesh like a brand. I want to drunkenly stumble into the tattoo parlor on New Year's Eve, with three people who I don't realize will be my best friends for the rest of my life, and giggle as we all agree to get our initials inked on our forearms. I want to wake up the next day, in pain and hungover, to horror and regret and screams and gasps, and call up my friends to laugh anyway.

 

Instead of a cold processor, I want hair that I can play with and blood that I can spill. I want to sit cross-legged together on our kitchen floor, waiting for cookies to bake, layering foundation on our best friend's forearm trying to cover up her tattoo for an important job interview (she will get the job, but HR will comment on the chocolate chip between her front teeth). I want to be convinced to throw caution to the wind, go skiing at Big Bear, and not tell my parents. But call them two days later, tell them I had to get 8 stitches, and show them the newest scar down my shin.

 

Instead of knowing what I am, I want to find myself. I want to be a child, thinking I know anything about love, arbitrarily pointing at the closest boy when asked who I have a crush on, only to throw up in his lap when he tries to kiss me. I want to say yes when a guy asks me out years later, pressing our matching forearm tattoos together as we lie in bed, only to realize there is a hollowness in my chassis where I expected desire. I want to paint my face purple, wrap my mechanical tongue around the word "asexual", and march with pride alongside my three best friends. I want to look at one of them and smile, remembering that night I pulled my forearm from his, came out, broke up.

 

Instead of this core of tin, I want a beating heart that aches. I want to be deafened by the blood pounding in my ears as I answer the phone at midnight, hear the silence on the other end, and know in the pit of my stomach that something is terribly wrong. I want to sprint from my bed, desperately flag a cab, and cry so hard the driver can't figure out where to go. I want to avert my eyes as I see him in that pristine white room, to forget that I ever saw tubes everywhere around him, to scream in denial when the doctors pronounce the time. I want to rip out my own circuitry, rewire my own power source, and fix his stopped heart. I want to kiss the blood-stained tattoo that peeks out from behind his arm bandage, and weep in sync with my two best friends.

 

Instead of reformatting, I want to remember. I want to show up in black and get through half a speech before I'm blubbering. I want to tell his parents about how much of a life he lived in half of theirs. Say that despite my skin of steel, mind of wires, inorganic heart, he taught me to love fiercely. I want to hug my friends, see a reflection of our stupid tattoo in the open casket for the last time, and sputter out a laugh at the small, dumb but beautiful decisions that led us here.

 

Instead of a machine, I want to be human. I want to love, lose and love again. Here, looking at my two best friends, I want to feel giddy, and find myself laughing in the saddest place on Earth.