Can I Function Without It?

Sometimes I wonder, which parts are me and which have been bestowed upon me by some arbitrary process or event, parts which are momentarily useful but, in the long term, become a distraction, or potentially lethal, like the appendix surgeons removed when I was five, moments before it killed me.

I surgically alter myself, from time to time, excising this part or another. Then, every now and again — out of breath and shaking — I hastily restore an essential part of me.