Broken dolls and Crystal Glasses

By: Gildae

I watch the procession of broken dolls,
Of dreams and wishes unrequited,
Ah, to be young and free,
(If those words hold any meaning at all)
For what is youth if it not a time spent in chains,
Eyes barely opened, mind barely responsive to the world,
What is the true worth of innocence?
The dolls have glass eyes that reflect my every thought,
All homogeneous, all the same,
All pretences similar, all lies the same,
Their eyes are my eyes,
Their lifelessness is my detachment.
The broken dolls,
Their limbs contorted into grotesque angles, some torn off,
But all equally damaged,
All reminders of something that we all wanted that was never there.
That never could have been there because we never tried to make it so.
The dolls sip the champagne of perpetual disappointment,
Tasting the sorrow of life in a façade,
A clever portrayal, enacted of for the sake of nostalgia,
Or else, for the sake of our memories,
So they will not fade.
And so we live out the same tired lies as our fathers,
We stare at our own reflections in each other’s eyes,
And believe that there is nothing better than this.
We walk the same streets every day,
Eat the same food,
Exchange the same mind numbing banalities,
For some semblance of belonging,
And creatures of habit though we are,
There is nothing, absolutely nothing,
That could force us into this state,
Where we watch the endless procession of minutes,
Hours, days, weeks, months and years,
Praying to the gods that a change may come.
That there might be something more than this.
But there are no omnipresent beings keeping us serf,
There are no governing laws, save our own,
That we must always obey,
We have brought this upon ourselves.
And that is why little girl’s dolls will always break,
And the fine crystal of the glasses that we drink champagne from
Will always fail to distract from the fact that it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth,
Why tears will never take away the pain of a broken heart,
And why our differences will always seem more important,
Ever more important than what we have in common.
It is our nature, and we would not have it any other way.