She exists past the edge of the screen now, her tiny hands press me into place and move me across the pale light. I can see the projection from the corner of my eye - she animates me.

I am only a silhouette now, cut and drawn, meticulously engraved with detail and filigree and pattern. I am her happy slave projected on the screen- oh, I am that. No more than flat paper and light.

My fingers are just shallow cups of supplication against her detailed, backdrop drawings.

She shifts me to smile for her, takes my face and moves it forward to kiss lips that, like I, know nothing. Perhaps the paper-doll can feel love for the one who cuts him; perhaps I was only her plaything. It doesn't matter, my dance for her will continue until she leaves me upon the shelf - behind the glass, only remembered on film.

I want to be the hand that she holds, even if my thin paper fingers crush in the passion, or my lips and face crumple in the heat of her touch. I know that she desires only to exert her control over me. I'm only a paper slave. I know my place in her life.

To this point I've only felt the smooth caress of her gentle fingers as she shaped me into this prince, this image to dance at her whim. I was held fast in one hand as she sliced away my chaff, blew the tiny bits of paper from the spaces between my fingers, opened my lips as a gentle smile with her razor.

She created me from nothing; built me from slivers and cast me, dancing, singing, upon the wall for her. She drew a line of wire down my arms and legs; placed the lead behind my smile - so that I could do none of it on my own. She forced her strength into me as her plaything to be discarded.

She never changed for me, expected me to bend and frit and rise from my cardboard chair, to submit my paper crowns and parchment pence as an offering to her grace. I pray that she will again lift my head. That would make me happy and complete - from scattered fragments to a simple being of her creative whims. I cannot lift my arms without her - and I am faded- because she left me fluttering in the wind.

Now I wait, beneath glass, behind the bare light, stretching my arms to the sky she inhabits for me. I long for her to take my limbs and touch the tips of my fingers to my lips and draw it away. I am shadow now, flickering, fading - blowing her a kiss goodbye - simply longing to dance alone upon the wall, even if broken hearted.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.