Dolls

if you knew

the feelings they’ve had

the things they’ve seen

the love ripped away from them

- rejection is a regular dinner guest -

would you still shut them out?

would you leave them on the shelf?

or -

would you prop them up in a tiny table and chair, but never play?

they’re silent, but they feel the coldness

beyond the wide eyes and cutesy dresses

they feel everything;

lying beneath the more desirable possessions, stinging, followed by a trickle

perhaps an act of god, or some other impossible force

they feel the cruel warmth pooling around their left arms

impossible, still impossible

and yet, beyond the stuffing and plastic plastic plastic

they are more alive than you could ever know

and yet they get tossed to the corner of the room

in their try-hard dresses and stupid little mouth gapes

lying on their sides

- the mechanical eyes can’t quite close at this angle

to ensure they witness all the love they’ll never have

and beyond the repeated red trickles, near drowning them and staining the

plastic plastic plastic

this act of the impossible never ceases

leaving them to gag and rot in the disgusting puddle

sticky dresses and hair

and to think they were once beautiful

- avert your eyes with each accidental glance to that mess

don’t play, and don’t clean them up and return them to their former selves

just leave them in the inescapable revolting state

while over and over those words repeat in their hard heads made of

- plastic plastic plastic