An excerpt from Dollhouse Downfall:

Plastic/Porcelain

You broke the china doll that sat in my old white hutch

when you threw a dagger in my direction.

Porcelain, pieces of my mind scatter across

the planks of the hardwood floor. They cut my feet

as I hope the dysfunction away. I restrained myself for so long

in that cult of trees, its fruit that lied to me.

Now I suck the marrow of life out of the skin,

and my teeth twinge from the sweetness.

I miss the clarity I used to have,

brainwashed ease, I could know what was right

because I was told so. There was no test,

only blind obedience. And my mother taught me

that was love.

And so I loved you blindly,

without questioning the lily white rage,

the screams, eggshell pandering, I obeyed

like you taught me to.

So that day when you broke the shelf,

everything collapsed, my delusions of you…

shattered. I picked up the pieces that fit,

and left behind the bloody remains.

The cult of trees cannot touch me now,

for I can see each root, and its grasp within me.

The anxiety means nothing, inherited trauma,

bestowed upon me, I can re-write each word carved into my bones

and they will read as follows:

I am no one’s victim. I am no one’s possession.

I am skin and bone. I ache like a body that knows pain.

And you cannot take away how I got here. I am my own body.

Plastic and porcelain, you cannot break me like that again.