Oh, you can be so very sharp.  Someday I fear you might cut me to pieces.

We cannot come away without embedded thorns.  A goat head or two.  They sting, these sharp things, but I have yet to refrain from wandering thorny paths, for along these paths I find strength and resilience even as I bleed.  Am I not made more beautiful by the bits or torn flesh?

I tell myself that, but can't say that I feel it.  The tiny cuts inflicted externally by way of a condition of being, the everyday bullshit categorized within the realm of common circumstance that the Russians refer to as byt, are endless.  It is a broad term, applied to the everyday existence of the hoards of people struggling to survive in a cruel world.  A shared struggle.  We all fall down, sustain and inflict injuries, fall victim to chaos and come away damaged.  We are all kicked when we're down. We're all fucking sad, scared, angry, and fragile, a result of not only major catastrophes in our lives, but also the thousands of endurance tests we are faced with on a daily basis as we are forced into ill-fitting constructs.  Some of us have a particularly difficult time conforming to these constructs, and some of us are just diseased.