Wax Museum

Pried from the confines
Molded with care
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

Shaped to perfection
Unblinking stares
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

Fit for display
With aversion to heat
Keeping our place
For the viewer’s delight

Made from a cast
Such a magical fake
Smiles on our face
Under elegant light

Crafted detail
In a timeless suspense
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

Ghosts of ourselves
But we keep them convinced
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

Screams never forming
Our lips never moist
Hands always reaching
But nothing to touch

Eyes so deceptive
You would think we were real
Frozen in motion
With a destiny sealed

Look underneath
This elaborate skin
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

Something is living
And stirring within
We stand so still
We stand so pretty

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The Pressure of Being Plastic

Stitched carefully together
Her words trickle slowly
In clandestine tribes of marked apprehension
Tiptoeing shards
Split from glass figurines
Cracked by screams
Tracked at higher frequencies
Than dreams sold here

Corner vendors spin her love
Or some simile of
At sales pitch speeds
Drinking cellophane and regurgitating demographics
If I dance to the jerk of these marionette strings
Will I be pretty, like plastic?
Are our measures so drastic?

Arts & Crafts

My arts and crafts
Are hearts and masks
Cut out of thoughts
And glued together

Paper faces
Lines I traced
From other smiles
And other places

Take a razor
And a paper
Make a face that
Suits me better

Crude constructions
Simulations
Of expressions
I can’t fashion

Take some scissors
Strong adhesive
Bend the edges
Shape the pieces

Lips for smiling
Eyes for lying
Skin like armor
Just to hide me

My arts and crafts
Are hearts and masks
All colored neat
Inside the lines

If there’s mistakes
We can erase
And start again
With better pens

My arts and crafts
Are jokes and laughs
To cover scratches
Fresh and bleeding

Paper faces
I created
From the things
Left strewn about