jaunty lake
Hire the finest taxidermist—
One who knows the art of slaughter,
Who can freeze my face in amber
And turn me into your beloved daughter.
Start with severing the paper wings I dared to grow,
Declare the sky too high for waxen men,
And pluck the feathers white as snow,
So that I may never leave your reach again.
Strip my flesh of its worldly ambition,
Peel away that which burned hot enough,
to melt your waxen vision,
the curls of flesh that threaten
Your hand of cruel precision.
Tell me again, that this is protection,
That this is how love is supposed to feel,
Press the scalpel against my sneer,
Cut a smile and staple it with steel.
Replace my eyes with glassy beads,
Drain them of emerald green,
leave only gray—the shade of realism,
that does not bleed, does not weep,
Or challenge the world you crafted for me.
Rip out the heart that loved too easily,
For you cannot steer its tender tides,
Deem its passion too freely seen,
Where another should reside.
Tell me how I will thank you for it, one day
As you stuff me full of cotton, light as air, hollow inside,
So my fleshy form no longer sags,
From the weight of being alive.
Now you can dress me up in frills,
Brush my brittle hair without protest,
Put me in the heels I could never fill,
The product of your slaughter,
that will never think, feel, or blink again,
Finally, the perfect daughter
quiet patrol