The Person

I

The person.
It needs to be picked up again today.
Rag doll, dead body, upright sway.
Put it in the shower, wash off the smell of sleep and nothing.

Brush the hair and outline the eyes, if they roll back in the head, it is not dead. Open its eyes, like Clockwork Orange if need be, have it smile with metal hooks, made in society’s factory.

The person moves, it talks, it sings! The smile looks plausible. Let’s put it out in the world and label it recovered, refurbished, renewed.

Will it break down again?

Certainly. We can mend it. New parts, new hair and lips and teeth, dress it in clothes to sheath.

The trouble with these things is that their brains just don’t connect, it doesn’t accept the body and the body it doesn’t respect.

It tries to feel, make it arms and legs real, it wants to see its blood. It comes to me with damage, I am the fixer.

So I paint a picture and call it a fool, put in new thoughts and new rules. Tell it to sleep less, wash more and I tighten the hooks. Then with pride I watch it stride with upturned lips and wide eyes.

II

I moved the body to the doctor’s today. He lifted limbs and played with my sin.

He tightened my smile and straightened my hooks and I obliged, just for the looks.

My arms and legs foreign, I don’t feel human inside. I am made of pills and guts, not of smiles and pride.

The blood brain barrier prison forever traps me inside, I will always be held captive. I try to poke holes in it to let myself in or out, a burr hole for my soul, my doubts.

He says, “what have you done to yourself!” Picks up the arm with wide horror eyes and says we can put new parts on it, new skin, new paint and after he says with a hook eyed smile, “now doesn’t that feel better?”

I burn the skin and pick it, peel away the seals, to feelings and memories.

The people around me with connected body and mind, they feel the things inward and on the outside. They stride through life presenting their greatness on the canvas of their bosom and drawn on faces.

I pick it apart, to try and find the thing, that will make me whole and feel on the outside like them.

lll

She won’t stop, I just can’t comprehend, how a beautiful girl has a mind to mend? Her skin she destroys, the pills she takes.

Her smile and skin, is beautiful as a dolls.

There is nothing to fix.

She dances and wears clothes, walks and sings, she can cook and clean and speak.

IV

The person, four days in every two moons, comes together, mind and body and sings and dances like a fool with wings and liquor. She glows with pride and smiles free of hooks, her dolls eyes and smile, real looks.

She feels the song she sings, glows with the beauty only formed by the perfect ring of connectivity and thought.

She provokes, outspoken, out loud, presents this as herself. And as she dances on the street, strangers can’t help but feel her joy, when she is not the doctor’s toy.

The doctor does not like this, her realness, he displeases, for the hooks and wire smiles sit on his shelf, dusty and inhuman, no mouth to morph, and nothing to fix. He needs to control, he brings her in to tighten her soul.

And he lays down the girl, behavior salve applied, and now he finds thrill in washing the sleepy doll, of cuts and stings she used to make feelings.

He paints her face and shines her skin, washes off the love and sin.

And when she stirs, the doctor with the hook grin, declares her in remission, says she fits the look book.

And he says he has made
A person.

 

-LRose