Paper Doll
by Sher Ting Chim
Little paper doll sitting
at the foot of the banyan tree
your eyes like gibbous moons
are knotted with stars
your hair bouclé tassels in the wind
he sees you and hands you
a hydrangea, telling you to stay pretty for him
he strokes your hair and tells you to keep the daisies in -
they remind you that he adorns you
the way hydrilla adorns the bottom of the lake
your smile is a crimson stain across alabaster skin
your heart galloping like a war-horse against its own restraint
and you want to tell him thank you:
thank you for shattering your spine,
the half-moon of each vertebrae
still glistens through the night
thank you for running his eyes over your skin,
the gaze peeling your flesh like the incendiary blade
of a paring knife, that
in your marrow,
this trellis of scars and trabeculae,
his ocular shadow still lurks
you want to tell him so many things
but you don’t
because you are
over-thinking, exaggerating, confabulating
but tomorrow comes, and he forgets, and
you don’t
Your ghosts personified and days derealised,
they can say that each smile, each caress is a paper cut
but together, they are a wound,
and you can never tell which is the greater injury -
his callous hands
or their casual nonchalance
You watch him place a fire
in your heart, red and orange tongues roiling
each artery into the sky, saying
thank you
over and over again
then
over and over again
till you are nothing
but
a little paper doll sitting
at the foot of a banyan tree
with eyes as dead as stars
at the foot of the banyan tree
your eyes like gibbous moons
are knotted with stars
your hair bouclé tassels in the wind
he sees you and hands you
a hydrangea, telling you to stay pretty for him
he strokes your hair and tells you to keep the daisies in -
they remind you that he adorns you
the way hydrilla adorns the bottom of the lake
your smile is a crimson stain across alabaster skin
your heart galloping like a war-horse against its own restraint
and you want to tell him thank you:
thank you for shattering your spine,
the half-moon of each vertebrae
still glistens through the night
thank you for running his eyes over your skin,
the gaze peeling your flesh like the incendiary blade
of a paring knife, that
in your marrow,
this trellis of scars and trabeculae,
his ocular shadow still lurks
you want to tell him so many things
but you don’t
because you are
over-thinking, exaggerating, confabulating
but tomorrow comes, and he forgets, and
you don’t
Your ghosts personified and days derealised,
they can say that each smile, each caress is a paper cut
but together, they are a wound,
and you can never tell which is the greater injury -
his callous hands
or their casual nonchalance
You watch him place a fire
in your heart, red and orange tongues roiling
each artery into the sky, saying
thank you
over and over again
then
over and over again
till you are nothing
but
a little paper doll sitting
at the foot of a banyan tree
with eyes as dead as stars
Sher Ting is currently studying in medical school in Australia. She has work published/forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Opia Mag, and Overheard, among others. She is currently an editor of INLY Arts and The Aurora Journal, and a Poetry Reader for Farside Review. She tweets at @sherttt and writes at https://downintheholocene.wordpress.com