the mech you do not know, the femme you cannot see

I loved the shadows when they hid me.
I let them wrap themselves around me like a wedding cape.
I walked on four feet, down at your knees,
And kept beneath your optics and your notice
Because I had learned it was dangerous to be beautiful.

Once in a great while, I showed myself.
I marched arm-in-arm on the barricades with my lovers and sang.
I posed for a portrait to show the world pride.
I danced on a pole in a palace on New Kaon
Where no-one who wasn’t bound to us all could see me
And no-one who didn’t love me could touch me.

But still I padded through shadows at night.
And the people who hurt us all fell,
Never knowing what hit them.

But now that you’ve all seen me dance
With the femme whose helm was on fire
And now that you’ve all read my poetry
Still you don’t see me.

I broke up with the shadows who loved me
I dropped my veils and my cape,
Slipped out of my gown of fine mesh
And spat out all my lanthanum chips.
And still you don’t see me.

Stop looking for all of the things I have been.
Stop trying to follow the tracks that I never left behind.
I’m standing right here, being more than the sum of those parts;
And you can’t stop the signal my love has been blasting from Destron’s heart.