Cellophane Dolls

Because being hurt is like partial amnesia
it didn’t have the guts to take all the memories away
so you are just a puppet in a hospital bed
tied to tubes like your parachute 
looking at someone like a stranger looks at a stranger
the un-keeping of the eyes
but cocking your head at them
and trying to look past their skin without having to pretend
as if they were translucent like cellophane dolls 
i feel like you are holding the cellophane over my mouth just with your eyes
i’m sorry, i can’t remember how it used to be
just please, please don’t choke me 
so I’m a puppet staring at a cellophane doll
throwing words out like meaning 
meanings tossed into the void 
I wonder, I wonder if I loved you.

-anna sluder

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