Why, hello! Once again, I have another poem to share with you: this one started off as more of a song/spoken word (that I would never perform, by the way). This is one of the first poems I wrote that I actually like, so I hope you like it too!
Here we go…
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Puppet
it’s hard to see out of beady plastic eyes, painted, and glued, and done
it’s hard to hear out of wooden ears and hard to draw breath without lungs
it’s hard to walk when your legs are sticks and your joints move with the wind
it’s hard not to break, have ideas of escape, when you don’t have a brain with which to think
how easy to pretend the world isn’t real when you yourself are fake
so take up the reigns, the sticks, the bit, whatever you use to move me
have me run, and jump, and dance, and fight
so at least i’ll know what it’s like
to live without puppet strings
i hear that the heart sings
but my chest is hollow and there is no voice in my throat
so tell me to dance for you, rhyme for you, die for you
use me till all that’s left is a splinter and I hope that it jabs you beneath the nail
yank on the string and i’ll lift my leg, all for your laughs, here I am, use me
my head full of cotton and joints of squeaking metal, gleaming metal
if only my sheen was skin and my stubs feet and my hands warm and my conscience clean
and my head full and my jar of regrets empty
so fill me with feelings, give my mouth words, air to my body, move my dead bones
but not bones, I forget that I’m false, carved and strung for your bliss, made for this,
that I lived for this, will die for this, my existence a dark abyss, and you my master,
my director, my plaster, you hold me together when I fall away faster
but if staying intact means to attack and sacrifice and kill and slay
and lie, and lay in the pile of chaos I’ve made, you’ve made,
because you are moving me, behooving me,
pulling my limbs into actions to your satisfaction
do you enjoy watching me flail, and win, and wail, and sin
is victory worth having if the price is losing your soul?
but what soul do I have, it’s tainted, it’s painted, like the pupils of my eyes
I see what you tell me to see, be who you tell me to be, say what you tell me to say
slay who you tell me to slay
you say breathe and I breathe, you say sleep and I sleep, you say eat and I eat,
you say eat more, and more, and more, and more, and I eat
and I breathe, and I sleep, and I slay, and I say, and I be, and I see –
I can finally see.
I do have eyes, and a heart, and a need.
I’ll find something new to fill this hollow chest.
And I’ll snap these binding strings.
Rachel Sandell 