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I know I don’t understand you.  

I know you hate me.  You wish to terminate me, tear me apart, incinerate my endoskeleton until it melts down into a shiny, reflective puddled mess.  I know you wish all these things for me and sometimes I think I know why you wish them, but there are several things I don’t know about you.  

I don’t know why I catch you standing in my doorway, looking into my designated quarters and staring at me with an acute focus not unlike a Terminator’s.    

I don’t know why you call me a murderer, when that very same definition applies to you as well.  Are you disgusted with yourself?

I don’t know why I can see a machine-like quality in you.  You are not a machine, yet to me, you are exactly what you hate.  You’re a ruthless killer, you have a one track mind, you will stop at nothing until your mission is complete.  We operate in similar fashions, especially in times of calamity.

To me, we’re no different at all, but to you, we’re not made of the same ‘stuff’.  I wasn’t pushed through a birthing canal like you.  I didn’t have a mother to hold me or nurture me.  You say there’s no way I could ever understand how to acquire this ‘stuff’ and it would be futile to try.

So, after your body is spent from our physical release, you go on about this ‘stuff’.  You harp on this silly notion of ‘stuff’ while you redress.  You avoid my eyes when you talk.  You try to keep your arousal hidden, even though I sense you’d like to repeat the very same actions that just transpired between us.  I’d like to feel your rough kisses on my body again too.  

I know I don’t understand you, Derek Reese, but I do know that you are wrong about me.  I know that you mean ‘stuff’ both in the literal, figurative and spiritual sense.  

Literally, no, we are not made of the same stuff.  Not entirely.  Figuratively, we have more in common than you liked to admit.  The instinct to kill, to protect those under our charge, the will to fight is in us both.  

Spiritually, your soul senses confusion because maybe, just maybe your soul intertwines with mine in a way you can’t comprehend.  I know you believe that my soul doesn’t exist, but I’m here to inform you that it does.  

I ache from a place I can’t fathom.  The pain is physical, yet I can’t pinpoint the location of my discomfort.  I only feel this pain when you leave me.  Doesn’t this mean I have a soul, like you?