watch the girl, a poem

watch the girl watch her live and die and love and cry and bathe and eat and speak with lips puppeteered who’s pulling the strings watch her walk about like a marionette watch her stare at her captors her friends her foes her fears her faults her WHAT ARE YOU watch the girl watch her run and scream and win and lose and guess and check and fail she’s truly a spectacle to behold we can see her she can’t see us she can’t see herself she can’t recognize herself she won’t recognize herself WHAT ARE YOU watch the girl watch her hair her eyes her mouth her shoulders her chest her arms her thighs her legs her feet they’re all so misshapen aren’t they no wonder she can’t recognize herself she talks in poetry but we don’t understand so the only communications she has are with voices in her head how quaint WHAT ARE YOU watch the girl watch her cut and scrape and bleed and tear and spool and fall and collapse bleed on the windows the walls the bed stain the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floor the floorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloorthefloortheWHATAREYOUwatchthegirl

Valerie Gitlow

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