Something Stills
Mother’s downcast looks and battering scolds
W
As bandages wrapped about a searing wound.
Father’s spankings and brother’s teasings
Weave the tough garment of childhood,
Quelling the curious questions wanting light.
Life plays out in pretty pink plastic,
The perfect couple, Barbie and Ken;
Talking in turns, then marriage and kids.
Invisible hands dress them up fine,
Move their limbs and make them walk
Along man-made paths and halls and pretend stores.
But something drops one lovely day
While Barbie watches her Ken at pretend play
And how his eyes do never stray.
His gaze is fixed and always staid,
Only his clothes ever change.
She wonders what moves her arms and legs.
That one small question grows and grows
Till her pink world turns crusty brown
And Ken’s pink skin turns ghastly blue.
He withers there before her eyes—
She tries to stop this strange demise
Of all she knows and feels outside.
But something shifts—something new—
She can’t say. All she see has cracks
And tiny secrets oozing darkness from within.
There is no fear—and then there is.
And then one drops, and then another.
She cannot stop them—nor does she want to.
Though no one notices except herself,
She stands there naked among her plastic things
And sees the stories all dangling from colored strings.
Something still amongst the daily chatter
Of her mind has been watching—and she knows.
She snips the strings, one by one, and something grows.
And nothing matters.
BBP219