Love Poem: Paper Dolls
Stella Healy Avatar
Written by: Stella Healy

Paper Dolls

she is everything you have seen in the movies
crayola hair
velvet dress
sugar in her veins
tears glued to her face
she fingerpaints the kitchen walls like a little girl and tapes their polaroids to every surface

he is every music video you've memorized
always humming something sweet
he lights all her cigarettes
writes her into little love songs that she never listens to
wakes up and watches the sun singe the grass

she is always dancing
swallows bubblegum for breakfast
flashes pearly whites with a sharp glare
they are always going somewhere 
always the first to get drunk and the last to get home

she lets him to all the driving 
pushes him to speed up
to run the reds
to trust himself
to risk it all

he finishes her sentences and she finishes his cigarettes
dying is only glamorous when it belongs to her
he says she is so bright
he is scared he will burn her out
she giggles and giggles and giggles and cries
she throws away the self help books, the anti-depressants, the love letters from all the boys before

they sit across from each other on his neon leather couch
stare at each other for hours
no words
just silly faces
they giggle and giggle and giggle until it hurts

and when they scream
the ceiling bleeds
he punches holes in the walls
she shatters all the picture frames 
all the furniture left limp and battered
echoes bouncing back and forth between cracked walls
paper dolls losing balance
paper house burnt down

before he knows it
he is finding glitter underneath his fingernails
behind his knee's
caught in his teeth
she wakes up with lyrics scribbled on the bottoms of her feet
the windows are always open
her hair always twirling in the wind
pretty little pills paint all of the counter tops
empty bottles sitting like molding vases

and before they know it the manic pixie dream girl and the manic pixie dream boy are intertwined all desperate and dreamlike 
they've switched bones and playlists and fur coats
they crash into the room like supernova's
the carpet dyes itself red underneath their feet and everyone stares
she drowns in his drunken paradise
chokes down his charisma
coughs up stardust
and suddenly

she's bored

ties a knot around her neck with the tape from his cassettes
she wants the one she can't have and it's driven her mad
its all over
all over 
all over
and she's gone
a heart-wrenching holograph that will never dance again
every girl he meets will resemble her less and less

and he's alone
paper boy
paper home
up in flames
glitter and smoke