I live in a society of broken dolls,

With broken voice boxes,

Repeating words they can’t understand,

Saying what they can’t mean.

Parroting hopes and dreams of no one in particular,

But screaming to be heard,

In a sea of incessant high pitched squeals,

And grating laughs,

That replace meaning and emotion.

Cuddle the doll, it laughs.

Hit the doll, it laughs.

Throw, pinch, break the doll,

It laughs.

Until there is no separating pain and love.

It is all laughs.

Perfect bodies screwed on to imperfect heads.

Perfect heads screwed on to imperfect bodies.

A widened thigh

A crooked nose

An upturned forehead

A larger foot

But the standard of perfection is conspicuously absent

From the imperfect streets.

It does not lurk around the next corner,

Waiting to spring upon an unsuspecting doll

The mockery and derision they all expect.

It does not come.

She does not come.

You might think you see her in the subway,

Only to turn away at the first glimpse of a crooked toe,

Or a lacking ankle.

She is not here. She never was.

She was born like Athena,

Child of the wandering mind,

The self-injuring mind.

And she wields power given to her by the victim,

Sustained by the victim.

The broken doll,

Who holds freedom with the one hand

Always held behind the back.

Posing for a society exactly like her.

A world of broken dolls.