I Could Build You

I could craft you like a sculpture, pretty in a dress
Could fold a paper heart and place it in your chest
I could dream up laughter that dances in your veins.
Could think of how much you love it when it rains,
I could fill you with this memory of how you liked it best.

We would make a doll of human shape and size
we would give it hair, and lips and thighs
we could give it passion, give it yearning, give it lies
It would look just like you except the eyes.

I cannot make the eyes, I cannot picture them,
I cannot give them sight, I only reflect in them,
Hazel over layered glossy white.
I will lay your eyes aside, as they are never right.
It was only my reflection i remember.
rolled toward sunset and cold as cold November.

This mannequin is my tornado, my disaster, my earthquake,
it speaks with my memories and smiles with my heartbreak,
what comes out is nostalgia and drained arguments,
I can hold it in my insomnia, can carry it hence.

It’s time we disassembled what I built,
you filled the void she left with your perfect edges.
You sat in a frame perfect on my wall in golden gilt.
Now just your memories sit precarious on ledges.
But you are just a duplicate, you are just a dream.
You are everything that I recall but not quite what you seem.

Now in a room filled with clockwork springs,
now in a room with pieces of your hair,
that make you mostly human and how that stings.
I sit idle on the bed and stare and stare and stare.
I know that with my mind I could build you, I even prepare…

None of this is healthy, none of this is real,
your memory is my doll and only I can feel,
it sitting in my hand, draining me of zeal.
I must leave you in pieces and close the door behind me,
lest I try and try again to make a copy to remind me.