the puppet’s string are made from nylon
scratchy and seeming thirsty for your spare red blood cells,
clawing at your tissue paper skin for the tiniest taste
of the life flowing through your veins
yet these monstrous lengths of twine are for the manipulation of the puppet’s creaky wooden joints.
the old oak tree that lies at its heart
yearns to reach for the sky again
slowly twisting its gnarled knuckles closer and closer to the clouds of heaven.
instead this mighty wood beast of the forest has been turned into a jester
for a courtroom full of sickly child-kings and queens
but alas, he is So Entertaining
condemned to forever dance at the hands of the old man, whose skin was not as firm and whose mind was not as sharp as twenty years prior
Father Time steals minutes and stretches them into decades like a tired *** of putty
decades where this poor puppet will rot, thrown out and discarded
“existence is a prison,” his last thought as the ***** red velvet curtains closed
to a cacophony of children’s cheers and hollers