Liberation!

There she is
sitting
stooping so low.
She is smiling through
red cherry lips.
Her porcelain face shines
so bright in the gallery.
Is she art?
Arms and legs
attached together by a brown twine.
Her wild black hair
is only a wig, it seems.

So long and brittle
So longing to break
Free from the puppet strings
that hold her back
Her torso is just a torso.
White. Cracked. Glossy.
Tiny hips and dips
but without those strings
each limb would fall
off and roll to the floor.

What does she want?
Is she happy
on display?
Willing to rot?

Life-size and statue-esque
but the cold black bones
of her eyes
say otherwise.
She wants her porcelain body
to merge as one.
She wants skin and fat and dimples.
She wants to rip
those strings
and immovable black harnesses
off her body,
Slice each one,
slip into being
Human.

She just wants to breathe.

There she is

Gazed upon. Scrutinized.
Seeing humans when the gallery is open.
Being alone when the gallery is closed.

One night
She gets her wish.

As if, by magic,
A pink sheath of skin morphs
And secures her loose-hanging limbs

and melds them together.
Hair sprouts in places
she never could touch,
like a soft padding of cush.
Her lips, they twitch
Her eyes, they blink.

She can hardly think,
She can hardly think.


She feels her black hair
on the top of her head
and jumps up, so quick
about to be fed

new information.

Dark is the art gallery
(after hours)
as she slips by, unnoticed.
Finds the extra key
(in a desk drawer, unlocked)
opens the door and walks into the night.

The cold air greets her
fresh naked body
sending goose bumps
down her newly
acquainted limbs.

She laughs.
She cries.
She is finally alive!

Turning her back to the gallery
she runs into
the blackness, stars
illuminating the stark night.
(never to be seen again)
The next morning the museum curators scratch their heads in wonder.
Did somebody steal the art piece?
The seat she was sitting on is empty……