The Operating Table By Danielle Searby

Xerox faces staring back at me.
White walls mocking tranquility.
Chrome reflections morph the truth.
Scientists promise the fountain of youth.

Surgical steel and a rubber glove.
Bright lights grant halos from above.
Rushed into the quiet room.
The cleanliness of comatose doom.

From the world of plastic.
Copied expressions and stretched elastic.
White light and humming to calm the mind.
Lobotomies and pleasantries strangle mankind.

Blurred

Svelte little girls are running in circles behind my eyes.
When I was blind everything was a blur.
Thin ankles looked thick.
My hair is falling out with the lines of age,
the lies of age and I hear a snicker behind my back.
I used to enjoy that snicker but now it is a poison bullet.
Pretty bones and soft brown hair.
The dreams they promised to prepare.
I feel deflated.
I used to be fire.
Am I part of the exclusivity now?
I'm left waiting.
There is no reply
....
....
There never will be 'til the day I die.

My lips are always painted but the colour has changed.
My pretty bones, milky white and raised.
How easy it was to return to default.
When imagination comes to a grinding halt.
You lied to me.
Your perfection is obscene.
No one said you could wake me from my dream.

Previously published in Ophelia Street.