Go from the inside out.
Manipulate every fiber of your being
Until you are immune to being hurt.
Until you can’t be stabbed by the knives that were embedded into your fate.
Until you are powerful and coarse enough to never be broken.

Learn and study all of your flaws.
Obsess over each imperfection
Until you hate yourself more than anyone else ever will.
Dissect yourself from head to toe
Until you are certain you didn’t miss anything.
Until you have assembled a list of blemishes so long
That no one will ever beat you to the punch line.
No one will ever call you something worse
Than what you’ve whispered to yourself each night.
Until you can laugh at their petty attempts to break you.

You’re going to have to thicken your skin.
Don’t concede to crying.
Deprive your eyes of tears
Until your body is so under watered
And so dried up
That it becomes tough enough and rough enough
To never be broken.
Don’t let anyone get too close.
Even when your bodies are close enough
To feel each other’s breath,
Remain far away
And completely in control.
The second you let them in
You’re giving them the chance to break you.
And you can never let them break you.

Build up a wall.
Intertwine self-loathing and hardness and distance
Until they are laced so tightly
That no one will ever be able to get through.
Do it quickly and carefully
So that you are shielded by an indomitable armor
Without them even knowing.

Put yourself together from the inside out.
Program and manipulate every fiber of your being.

Make yourself immune to being hurt
And stabbed and burned.
Until you are powerful and coarse enough
To never be broken.
Until you are so far from being human and being alive
That the world has no chance of breaking you.