Paper

 

Paper

By Alexandria

I don’t want paper children

Or to grow them up prepared for silent wars

Where a teapot is a weapon

To pour out hot, hot violence and syrupy sweet silence

They won’t be taught to play house in a game of consequence and conflict

Your face could star in the outdated trepidation of a tedious, tired 1950s chick flick

I can no longer honor you with a paper ring

Even as you pretended to be my paper king

I cooked your dinner and wore an apron

You came home and told me in our paper home this is where I belong

You hum in my ear and we fall backwards in time into the black and white

When a colored TV never fit in any of our up and down nights

How do I ever excuse your verbal violence

As its loud and bold and does not crumble like our paper home

Like magic can I wrinkle my nose and turn it into silence?

You are my paper husband to wind up like a toy

As I raise our paper girl and our two paper little boys

They are flimsy, faulty, and thin

Made of all our hopes hanging on a hinge

A breeze of air would push them over

How do I tell them we are done and over

Over. Over. Over.

It hurts a little less to repeat.

You are my every paper wish and every paper desire on repeat

So you want me to gift you these paper children

Where you wear every different paper hat

I’ll cut them out for you on a surface nice and flat

What other roles must I play today?

Sexy then innocent

I’ll take out 25 cents so we can do our laundry

Throw the clothes in the washer and dryer then fold them

A domestic set of duties fitting for a paper wife

I’m the housewife, a lowlife, and then your way of life

How can I be a goddess when you are snapping at me and full of frustrations

Are we skipping through every painful argument and more painful paper adorations?

Your Hawaii shirt you lost on vacation

You screamed as you always do

You turned our paper children scared and blue

I’m afraid of my thoughts and what they outgrew – You.

So I’m dangerous then I’m docile

I’m heat then my body drips cool as an icicle

One day you bring home a bicycle and your temper is on full display

I once again teach myself to like your 1950s ways

It’s a prayer I must say for you to stay

Your teeth gleam a brilliant white

I want to be your bride in white

I’d wed you and gift away all my rights

As you touch me on my last day in white

Then you scream until I wonder— is this right?

Just the two of us on our wedding bed

Paper husband I will have you blushing and red

Till I do the littlest and smallest wrong deed

I wonder as of late do I know how to live freed?

I want our paper children

I want your paper protections

I rip my gown a little

As you choke me with my veil

I’m too fragile and I’m too frail

I am left to shake and flail

Oh your paper protections suffocate me in brilliant white

Brilliant, brilliant white

I keep your darkness to light my nights

As you bleed black over my whites

I take on your paper protections

To be your paper doll

You build me a tower of paper walls

With every yell they shudder

With every lie they shake

I’m a snow globe you love to throw and shake

I’m your favorite lie to fake

And your favorite rule to forsake

Without me, you’d be something to forsake

All this paper you have to make me a girl or a wife

An end to your silly, silly strife

I’m a weapon for you

I’m a blade

I’m a knife

I’m no paper wife

I find no need in paper protections

I can knock the tower down

Far, far to the paper ground

Where I burn your paper crown

Then sink our paper children as ships to drown

Play your 1950s with another girl

This one deserves better than a paper world