I am loose leaf paper packed and padded


(pale and pallid)

Wadded into the form of a girl, laced and


(entirely exposed)


Blank
As you wish of me


(or perhaps expect of me)


Paper


(torn from my silver-lined cloud)

Scrawled with your promises, problems


(regrets)

Stuffed down my shirt

Do they make me look like more of a woman to you?

Through white halls and sanitized walls


(the mirror falls)

Splinters into scars that slip their way through holes
Like corset strings, binding


([me])


My, have you called for me


(several times I recall)

What have you called me?


(I believe you said I was)




Cracked, crippled, crazy


(Craving)

Glass-eyed gluttonous sugar-glazed


(Gullible)

Drained down drugged up dropped on my head


(Daughter)


You compared me to a rose
Acknowledging the thorns but


(not the bruised petals)

I would hope I am a marigold
So when a children's game uproots me
And browning tears are shed
Something more awaits me


(the impetuous doll!)

And death is not the end


(but the beginning of a field)