doll of a doll of a….

a tender spot in the skull—

where the bones never fused

after the fall.

scattered light flickers,

skitters on the rampart

(is it mocking me?)

one-eyed bunny, crouched still

in my childhood closet—

a mute witness.

the receiver crackles—

an imaginary dandy

purring,

please—(please)—me.

a word you forgot

(or haven’t learned?)

rests on your tongue—

no, a snowflake,

melting

as you graze it.

⸻

hand-me-downs

from a hundred lives,

a thousand soiled linens,

a million sins—

sweat-drenched, rancid.

daddy’s evil eye.

mommy,

who won’t even

turn her head

as they defile me.

the scapegoat—

buckling,

knees scraped raw

beneath the altar.

silence: sharp as salt

on gaping flesh.

blood. so much blood.

gushing—gushing—gushing.

the endless hole

absorbs—absolves—dissolves—

names and sins.

the little girl swallows it

all,

so mother and father

can stay pure.

⸻

a voodoo doll

pierces her doll

piercing her doll—

needles tranquillising her to sleep. 

the beakless, wingless canary

tries to run—

tries to scream—

silently thrashing—

fuelled by worlds of inferno—

—not a drop

of sound

leaks out.

the girl, paralysed—

as serpents writhe

over and into her—

sends imaginary cries

tele-

-pathically:

(please—[kill]—me)

⸻

somewhere,

somehow,

snow falls

as white

as sins

she learned

to breathe.