by Via D’Agostino
I am a paper doll.
I live in a paper doll house.
All day I sit. All day I stare.
The world is white as snow and cold.
Do I live here by choice, or am I trapped?
I feel something: the faintest flutter.
What is it inside that can flutter?
I am nothing more than a doll.
I am made of paper, so frail, and trapped,
Living in this pure white house—
Where nothing ever changes. Where it is always cold.
Where all I can do is stare.
Sometimes my mind will drift as I stare.
Sometimes my eyes will close with a flutter,
And I will dream of something neither white nor cold.
I dream of a life where I am not a paper doll,
Locked in this paper doll house.
I dream that I am free, but I wake still trapped.
I will not be forever trapped—
I would rather die than sit forever and stare,
Blank and unanimated as the other dolls in the house.
It is my heart inside that can flutter,
Too faint to be a beat. The world sees only a doll.
It does not know that when I dream, I do not feel quite so cold—
That someday, I will never again be cold.
I will never again be trapped.
I am more than a pretty, propped-up doll,
Even if the world cannot meet my stare.
My heart will beat, hard and fast, hot and alive. It will no longer only flutter.
I will not live forever confined by the walls of this house.
If I had matches, I would burn this house.
If I had fire, I would destroy the cold.
Passion and fury would rage. The world would flutter.
I would be free. Unchained. Unleashed in wrath, no longer trapped.
I challenge you to meet my stare,
And see more than a just paper doll.
I am a paper doll in a paper house,
But the fierceness of my stare can scald any cold.
I am trapped, but already I can feel my heart begin to flutter.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Via D’Agostino, originally from the mountains of Western Massachusetts, attends the University of New Hampshire for her MFA in Fiction. She graduated summa cum laude from Ohio Northern University with double BAs in Creative Writing and Spanish, and her writing focuses on the environment as well as human and animal rights. She has over 20 works published, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and photography in journals such as The Rectangle and Hispanic Culture Review. She plans to read and write her way around the entire globe—right after grad school. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.