My China Doll

My China Doll

She sits where silence thickens fast

Beneath the shelf, behind the glass

With painted lips and glassy eyes

That never blink, that never cry

A crack runs pale along her face

A spiderweb of some disgrace

I swear she shifts, a breath, a tilt

Though every time, she wears no guilt

Her dress is stiff, her fingers curled

A stranger to the modern world

She waits, she watches, poised and cold

And in her arms, she cradles old

The lullaby I used to sing

Still lingers, shivering on a string

Of music box and memory

And something else she took from me

At night I hear her porcelain hum

When all the house is deaf and dumb

A whispered word, a footstep fall

The voice that isn’t mine at all

She never moved when I was small

But now I swear, she haunts the hall

I locked the door, I turned the key

Yet still she sits and waits for me

I woke to find her at my bed

Her hollow stare burned through my head

She gripped my wrist with fingers coarse

And hissed the words — now no more doors.