IMAGE

(yeah, this is kinda long, so...)

i'm empty,
thin and brittle
like broken eggshells
or that old show china,
"only for company."
teeny-tiny,
everybody's little doll,
porcelain
with the same dead stare
as the photographs.

fairy,
i dance for the lights on the stage
and the flowers in my hair
and the lens
that hides my father's eyes.
i twirl and sway for your pleasure,
catching the light in my tangled locks,
catching the pain in my wounded eyes,
as i spin, faster
and faster
to make you smile.

beautiful,
they tell me-
i have something the others do not,
something in my eyes
or in the rigid, jutting curves
of my starved little body;
that is what they want, my mother says.
skeleton hips.
so i keep dancing.

is that what you want?
i can dance for you,
dance with my words
and my eyes
and my actions,
bewitch you
and capture you
in my little web of wanting.
and i do want so much.

puppet, they have me dancing on their strings,
dragging on
like the plastic ballerina
in my grandmother's old jewelry box
moving to the same tired tune
and endlessly performing to
capture the public
as my father captures them on camera,
owning them somehow.

they have taken me since infancy
and adorned me
and they filled me
with wilted flowers,
silver candles,
and fairy magic stories
and they taught me
to make people love me;
i must be eggshell-thin
and childlike,
i must laugh and hide my tears
to be wanted
because that will make me somebody.

they have taught me to dance for you,
-to make you feel-
but all I feel
is tired
and hollow
and fake-
and with all this make-believe
i have forgotten who i am
except this clear, empty shell
and the image of a girl that used to be.