It was the way the fire touched upon her ankles, caressing and calling with silent voices while the memories of a lifetime of pain ran over and over in her mind like a movie played continuously. A dream. A whisper in her ear from the voices she feared that told her why she was there. She was alone and no one was ever really home and she had never really been safe. The only thing that she had was the fire and the memory. Those memories.
Her legs had grown weary with climbing and they pleaded with her to stop and rest, wobbling and sore and doing all that they could to stop her from going on. But she had to go on. She had to and she wanted to and she would not let even her physical self stop her. The heat had become overkill and her head dizzy. At times she felt as if she had detached from her own body, and a stranger was merely making her move by the tight strings attached to her tired limbs.
A stranger called Mama and a stranger called Daddy that took turns in bringing her to her end and when they were done they'd simply place her upon a shelf for another time. The same shelf she'd been placed on so many other times. Told never ever to move. Never ever to speak.
Because dolls don't speak. Dolls just sit and dolls just wait and they may hate you but they cannot say a thing. People can do whatever they like to dolls and they still can't speak because they are not allowed.
She wanted a knife to carve away the tainted skin and bleed him out of her forever. Maybe then her skin wouldn't burn with past bruises that lived hidden in her flesh. She knew that they were still there. She did. By spilling blood maybe the bruises would fall out too someday. But now all that she felt was more pain. Pain because she deserved it and mama had said she'd deserved it and daddy had made her deserve it in the first place.
She knew she was alone because mama had abandoned her. Daddy was gone because she had made him feel her pain. Because she had thought for a second that by destroying the cause it could cure the symptom. That finally the family could smile like in the photos and it would be real instead of a big lie.
She thought she had fixed it. But mama just hated her more and brother was not there anymore.
She could never ever forgive herself.
She didn't want to be on the shelf anymore. She wanted to become a real girl. But it was never meant to be.
