The Doll and All Its Broken Parts

Weekly Diary Entry

The doll is prepared and taken out, ready for the stage: let the performance begin!

It must be known that during the ordeal, the doll tightly holds on to the hands which control it, the very same hands which reduce it to a constant state of subservience (a state that the doll despises to its very core). This unfortunate behaviour is a visceral reaction to the blinding lights emanating from the stage on which this porcelain tchotchke is trapped; a pathetic survival instinct from which nothing is ever felt nor true; a display of a learned behaviour projected to survive the show, to survive the gazes; a result of the reluctant nurture received from one who cannot truly love.

Now enters the doll maker: as renowned and talented as she is beautiful, this craftswoman creates dolls as prim and pretty and proper and perfectly acceptable as she. Her reputation precedes her, for as you can imagine, she has successfully created perfectly splendid tchotchkes throughout her whole life; dolls so beautiful that all could only gaze and praise their pristine presentations and lovable mannerisms. It is the craftswoman’s life purpose—that she very much believes—to create lawful beauties which carry her own wondrous image.

Unfortunately, this story is not about one of her typical creations, rather it is about that one mistake; the only doll she created that did not carry the palatable beauty nor likability she wished it would; a being of porcelain that displays unconventional mannerisms, an unremarkable if at least understated appearance, and an unfortunate heart filled with oddity and heaviness.

This doll carries no delusions in its inorganic heart: it is very much aware that it is an unfit, inferior and even repugnant rendition of the other creations, a constant reminder of the doll maker’s failure. Something that isn’t meant to exist.

The porcelain being wishes to share with you its shame, its alienation, its melancholy. Feel its inert yet intense heart.

The fumes of shame, which emanate from the world, the other creations and the doll maker herself, are so inescapable they leave the doll in a constant state of hyperawareness. These fumes can sense and haunt those who are plagued with a sensitive spirit and, once they have made their way internally, they stay forever, suffocating everything from inside.

So the doll suffocates every day.

Back to the ongoing performance, the doll shuts down as it always does—it is a hollow shell after all—and thus cannot survive these performances without being dismantled from within, coming to embody whatever it needs in order to survive. Broken by the gaze; shamed into a state of subservience; running back to the soft and domineering embrace of the doll maker, of Mother.

“Mother is beautiful,

Mother is giving,

Mother is watching,

Mother is out to get me. I think this time she might swallow me whole!”

Another performance barely survived. The doll crawls away to its cage, trying to mend itself back together. And dream.

Then on a cold summer night, a performance went terribly wrong, causing the doll to run away*. But the images inside perpetuate the violences from which it escaped; visions of being cornered and trapped, docile and limp, desperately trying to lick its wounds; alone with Mother forcing her gaze upon it. The doll flees these thoughts, stumbling onto a quiet place and settling down for a little while.

“Mother is angry,

Mother is wailing,

Mother feels my dejection.

I can’t help but smile at Mother’s pain now that she feels the way I always do.”

I catch a glimpse of my own reflection; emotional volatility and an ever-changing sense of self are all I have inside; lifting the corners of this porcelain face of mine, revealing something pulsating and oozing and true. Something that should remain hidden from the world, that others would never dare to show, even to themselves.

A face of madness.

The mask finally is cracking—and it makes me smile; a disturbing truth revealing itself before my very eyes; that which was contained for so long finally released. And there’s no stopping it now.

“I am cracking,

I am changing,

I am her worst creation;

I am no one and I am true—a Monster hiding in plain sight!”

* On that day, I think my brain broke.

My spirit left my body, left outside to look in.

You were able to completely tear me apart,

Exactly like you intended, what you wanted.

The details are blurry but the feeling is oh-so vivid;

There is no forgetting such a feeling,

It lives on and inhabits you forever.

My whole world came crashing around me

Simply because of a whim of yours:

Your judgment, your envy, your gaze.

And the realization hit me so violently:

I am nothing but a disgustingly empty doll,

I am nothing but a broken reflection of yours,

I have no face, no soul, no insides, no heart.

And that you never loved me.

This story is part of a collection of poems, short stories and introspective diary entries, called “Grimoire of a Weirdo”.