The Dollhouse (poem)

[Harlequin]

I wrote this poem a few weeks ago, as a submission for my school\'s literary journal, and am looking for criticism. Tear it to pieces, if you want. Or don\'t. I\'m not sure if I like it, yet; it needs something, but I don\'t know what. Outside eyes are helpful.

The Dollhouse

You are the dead thing at the back of every child’s closet
Milky-eyed and spiny-tailed
Your bedmates watch in glass-eyed terror
As you rot away their fluffy insides.

You are a daughter of bones
My hands bleed when I think of you.
The dry rasp of your naked joints
Keeps me awake as you toss in your sleep.

You are the clockwork tumor in my heart
A mechanical malignancy that spreads, unstoppable.
Gears cloud my veins, and my spine hunches
Bowed beneath the weight of the key growing from between my shoulders.

Oil slides from my eyes, down my screw-jointed cheeks
I know that soon this mechanized cancer will infiltrate my womb
And you will wake from your slumber.
You will stagger from the closet on rotted paws
And embrace me.

Because your bones are my bones
And the key growing from my back
Is sized for the hands of a child.

[Existentially Odd]

Okay, I really liked this and I very much enjoyed the way it impacted on my senses.  Because you might want some feedback, I have scritched my brain and found one point where the continuity went slightly bumpy for me (and it was only a matter of using the wrong words, in my opinion).

My only concern (such as it is) was with the line:

You will stagger from the closet on rotted paws

and only because of the words \'stagger\' and \'paws\'.  Stagger (to me), suggests uncontrolled movement, yet the feeling from the poem up to that point is quite sinister and deliberate, which means the dead thing is in no way uncontrolled.  Paws - with the word \'fluffy\' already used early on in the poem and still sitting in my sensory memory - is too nice a word.  I\'m not sure what you\'d use instead - something along the lines of skeletal feet, I guess - but if you could alter it to something a bit more insidious, that would be good (purely due to the fluffy bunny and kitten paw associations I have - too sweet!).

As I said, really enjoyed it and that was the only part that caused any sort of dissonance within me through the whole thing - very creepy, m\'love!

[Harlequin]

XD thanks for the input, m\'love!

The thing with the staggering; it only staggers because it\'s paws are rotted – flesh skinned back from claws, leaving behind death-muddy half-prints. It is a perversion of that innocence, and it staggers like a drunk does – with clear intent, but without the motor functions to carry it there with any haste. It is slow, and it\'s path weaves, but it knows where it\'s going, and it is inescapable.

I can see what you\'re getting at, though. I think I\'ll add something to make that clearer.