I am a ragdoll cat.
Docile and placid, I bend
to your touch, my silky fur invites
your inquisitive fingers.

Easy come, easy go.
My claws are only for show.
Bred for affection, I'm
the perfect pet. I'll follow you
wherever you go.

But the thing about ragdoll cats is
when danger is near, we do not know.
We see predators the same as friends
because it's in our nature
to go with the flow.

Too many times, I've been ripped to shreds,
been tossed around and thrown
to the wolves.
When I land on my feet and lick my wounds,
I go right back to being a ragdoll.

Glassy eye.

While one sleeps, keep the second open blankly.

People believe you when you look at them. Stare at them. Break into them.

They'll believe in your strength. So you won't have to.


Tangled yarn.

Matted hair; red. Vibrant. Stand out before you stand up and sink.

Pull it. Yank it out in devastation, frustration, desperation.


Can you feel it escalate?


Ripping thread.

Twine comes tangled; tousled ropes of faith strung out. It's all a mess.

There's a breaking heart here somewhere. Dig beneath the filamentous skin.


If anyone dares to dig that long.


Stitching smile.

I'm tearing. Falling apart at every seam.

Stitch me...pin me back together. Lift me up; I'm weightless.


I present to you a plaster smile; don't forget to stab in dimples.

After numerous unfaltering years, it's wearing thin. A tiny break appears.


All the strings are coming loose.


Iron-on teardrop; a permanent stain on a withered face.


There are many uses for a Ragdoll.

Play with her. Use her. Dress her. Change her. Throw her. Hold her. Hate her. Tear her. Tell her.

Everything.

She'll never let it go.


Dance with her. Sleep with her. Hide her. Break her. Blame her. Love her.

Trust her.

Her stitching will hold. The perennial line of happiness will always prevail.


Ragdolls look brightly into any light. Opening lifeless arms to please. Everyone. Anyone who needs them.

Now, someone needs to need her.

A Ragdoll is good for many things. Fitting any character and criteria.

A Ragdoll can be selfless, ageless, fearless, reckless, seamless.


However.



Never






worthless.

I am a ragdoll stuffed with two-cent cotton imitation in a factory in China.
My arms and legs moved by hands seen through mismatched button eyes.
my only desire is to be like other dolls: Barbies, Polly Pockets.  Big eyes and plastic bodies.

My pills come in a bottle like a gumball machine, dispensing one brightly colored sphere at a time.  

Pills to make me, like them.

The artificial emotion seeping into my veins.
Sweating out my pores.
Plastering smiles on my face, and ironing rainbow patches behind my eyes.

A giant sugar-coated crutch shoved under my armpit.
Force-fed lying happiness.

Here comes the choo-choo into the tunnel.

I am a cat eating grass to make itself *****.

I want to move my own ragdoll arms, sit up without a metal pole behind my back.
I want a straight line stitched on my face so I can choose to make it go down.
Or up,
Or diagonal,
Or shed my potato-sack skin and metamorphose into a trumpet.
With freedom to resound over mountaintops,
Dribble liquid gold from my singing mouth.

But I am a ragdoll.

Whose head is stuffed with two-cent cotton imitation on a factory floor in China.

Whose only desire is to be real.

I am shylock,
In the attic barely used,
Barren exuberant floorboards creak in exhalation,
Of your footsteps.
There you find me,
In the dust;
A wooden trunk with brass fixings,
Didn't I tell you I held a million treasures?
You breathe in the sunlight,  
From the round attic window,
Preening itself in your vision basked in gold.
I am shylock,
You moved a gilded hand,
Guided by a unknown force of union with the lock,
The air is silent around you,
The room is intrepid in its wanton stranger,
Who dares to enter this chamber of dust.
I am shylock,
You take my fingertips from the cup of a hand I had placed gently on your cheek,
The night before I had told you,
Of this room,
You gently take my fingers and place it on the lock.
I am shylock,
There is a gentle click,
That soon awashes the abated room,
That sways into a tsunami of grandeur,
Of history, emotion, silence and tears,
And it consumes the dust,
The acrid air and essence of my fears settle on your eyes and the homely mouth.
I am shylock,
You know how I came about,
Now,
You know how this room became accustomed to the dust,
And the floorboards, the dust,
And the window, the dark,
You are breathing me,
The trunk is open and waiting,
And at the bottom,
A ragdoll awaits your palm,
Your strength, your gentleness and patience,
This is my shy,
This is my lock,
And you entered the room and consumed me.
Burst through the door, cut down the labyrinth,
and found me.
Picking me up,
You,
Became me, attended me, held me,
with grace sensitive to my touch,  
with the intention of a protector to my defence,
And the brazen warrior to my battle.
Now I am entered and countered.
Protected and put together,
Unbound and in your arms;
Now I am open and free.
My ragdoll, your love, and me.
Together, unlocked,
together I and you become, we.

The girl hums happily, stitching the ragdoll back together.
Spools and needles lay around her, ready as ever.

Every morning she threads a needle and stuffs back the cotton.
Smiling to herself whilst looping the pretty buttons.

Each night is the same as the young girl sleeps.
The ragdoll awakens and from the bed she leaps.

She tears at her stitching and yanks out the cotton.
Pulls her limbs away and prays to lay there forgotten.

But the girl never forgets and at every dawn,
gathers the doll up with a smile and a yawn.

''Oh ragdoll, every night you do the same thing.
Tear yourself up limb from limb.

You don't think you're special or worthy or loved.
At the bottom of every pile of dolls, you've been shoved.

But I will keep stitching you back up until you see,
just how much you really mean to me.'

I felt the warmth caress my cheek like
the light of heaven radiating down
on me. Looking up I saw my mother,
with eyes blue, and a dress smudged by her youth.
Laughter and love streaked down my face and it
could be said this moment was infinite
in all of its grandeur. But we knew of
this falsehood, for god left for the stars and
you were my angel, but the men took you
too. They marched in; their tin guns rattling
to a tune I didn't know. The storm grew
on until finally, I looked and saw
mother taken into its gaping maw.
My limp retreat, hastened by the need to
escape the reality laid before
me.
As the sad scurried escape continued,
I felt my most intimate seams begin
to tear. The contents of my creator spilling
onto the cold ground. Those tin toy soldiers
surrounded me, and I realized something.
“A ragdoll can't flee”
With an air of vengeance, I took their bait;
biting down on the cursed fruit bestowed
to me by our nonexistent savior.
With a smile I split my seam and screamed out
to all the fallen toys, and fallen joys.
“Hush now men, mother, and me this is life;
this is love, and can't you see what it doe-”
My thought grew dark as a cold tin soldier
finished the job, and I joined my mother
within the ash.
I felt the warmth caress my cheek like
the light of heaven radiating down
on me. Looking up I saw my mother,
with eyes blue, and a dress smudged by her youth.
Laughter and love streaked down my face and it
could be said this moment was infinite
in all of its grandeur. But we knew of
this falsehood, for god left for the stars and
you were my angel, but the men took you
too. They marched in; their tin guns rattling
to a tune I didn't know. The storm grew
on until finally, I looked and saw
mother taken into its gaping maw.
My limp retreat, hastened by the need to
escape the reality laid before
me.
As the sad scurried escape continued,
I felt my most intimate seams begin
to tear. The contents of my creator spilling
onto the cold ground. Those tin toy soldiers
surrounded me, and I realized something.
“A ragdoll can't flee”
With an air of vengeance, I took their bait;
biting down on the cursed fruit bestowed
to me by our nonexistent savior.
With a smile I split my seam and screamed out
to all the fallen toys, and fallen joys.
“Hush now men, mother, and me this is life;
this is love, and can't you see what it doe-”
My thought grew dark as a cold tin soldier
finished the job, and I joined my mother
within the ash.

Mario hits it with the sounds
of bodies hitting plexiglass.

My horses hit it without a sound. They want to escape it.
And I am trying to drive this dune buggy
off this cliff, but the clipping is strong here.

In Pac-Man, the tunnels were circular. I don’t know
if people realized that they were trapped in a sphere.

In Asteroids when you get to the edge of the universe,
you begin again.

And that Snake. His body could stretch all over his world
looping, but he could never eat his tail.


If all your electrons were in the right place, and all the wall’s
electrons were in the right place. You could feasibly walk through
the wall.

What would you do while in the wall? Think. Fear.
The superposition could rip your body into ragdoll parts.


When I turned clipping off, I expected the freedom to walk through
the wall and suddenly the floor
fell out from under me.

Every time I respawn I feel like my inventory is heavier,
and my flamethrower burns colder.

Some kids at school don't like me. That much is obvious.
But the problem is, I don't like me.
But really, how could you like me? With my limp brown hair, and my grey-blue eyes, its pretty obvious I'm no beauty.
My parents don't know.

And then, there is my brain.
Sure I may be in the class that excels in education, but compared to everyone else in the class, I am as dumb someone who can't spell 'car'.
I hate being me. I hate myself.
My first kiss was at a party as a dare. I mean, come on.

I don't deserve to be School Captain.
She deserves it.
She is a better person than me
I must punish myself.

I skip my next class, run home.
Get these things: 1.8 metres of rope, a hammer, an empty glass bottle, a knife, a chair, salt, a pen, and some paper.
I go into the bathroom.
Write a note about how sorry I am to my friends and family.

I smash the bottle. I draw pictures on my arm with it. Using my blood as ink.
I look in the mirror. I see a crazy girl staring back at me. "I hate you! You are worthless!" I scream.
I grab the hammer, smash the mirror.
Use the broken pieces to draw patterns into my leg. Rub salt into the wounds.

I am feeling weak. I am hurting. I am feeling dizzy.
Nearly there. Nearly done.
I grab the knife, slit my wrists.
It hurts. I scream in agony. Blood is streaming out.

I sit on the chair, sobbing into my hands.
I sit up, and try to make a hangman noose.
I can't. I'm too weak. Instead, I rub the rope against my neck until it is red raw.
Finally, when it is all done, I sit on the floor and think, just think.

My parents will find me. I will be featured in the news. I can see it now:
'Human Ragdoll - Girl kills herself in family bathroom, but not before torturing herself.'
Next it will say: 'Parents of the girl say, "We had no idea. We thought she was fine." what is the world coming to?'
Of course you didn't know. Not that you ever took the time to care, I think.

I can hear my parents walking through the door.
I whisper "Goodbye." and I can feel myself fading away. Today was fun.
My father walks through the bathroom door. He holds me and whispers "Stay with me baby, I love you."
I get time for an "I love you too." before I am pulled into darkness.

The darkness is here
It is all around me
As it has always been
My constant companion
They lurk inside
My demons
I sit in my dark corner
I try to keep away
But they wait for me
The ticking crocadile to my Captain Hook
They have a taste for me
For my cold blood
As it has always been
My constant ally
Against myself
Its almost a comfort
Having them there
Even if they do haunt me so
They are here to ravage my soul you see
The cruel reality is
I am not a real girl
Just a ***** little ragdoll
Fraying at the seems

stitched and knitted,
sown and grown.
I'm so fragile,
on my own.

you can easily break me,
whenever you want to.
I'm under your control,
my life revolves around you.

you see,
you can drop me,
break me,
shatter me,
and **** me.
but I will forever be under your control,
for I am your ragdoll and you are my curse.

Three words
Repeated
Over
And over
Then he
threw me
to the side
Like
a
Ragdoll

Have you considered being a *** worker?
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than associating with your own ribcage.
You're an actress
no script, just a character summary.

Limp, age 12, non-verbal marionette.
Snaps her strings when forced to dance.
Clings to the ceiling tiles, like the shadows she hallucinates.
Let's the puppet fall numb under strangers.
Ragdoll to be used for kindling.

When you play your part
You'll inherit enough money to afford a studio apartment
in Washington, or Las Vegas; anywhere with men paid large enough salary to afford your vacant body,
three phone plans,
a hotel room for you to stay awake in
Listening to dull thuds against your wrongfully warm corpse
Invited hoping the stinging could form tendons
adhere together like rubber bands
Snap you back into your skin.
You cling helpless to the ceiling tiles
Watch the ragdoll make mistakes.

"Have you considered being a *** worker?"
A homeless woman asked me,
*"Unoccupied bodies should start charging rent.
Let a man who can afford it pay for utilities.
You might be homeless
but you won't be wasted space".