My Pedestal of Bones (POEM)

Perched on a pedestal with a crown made of iron chains I sit and stare down at those who raised me here Their hollow shadow covered faces gaze up at me as they raise their elongated arms above their heads and unhinge their wide jaws. Their jaws slack open revealing a deep pit of red glowing matter that emanates a faint light In the darkness the walls of nothing glow red I am alone at the top, my arms shackled to the marble stone beneath my shaking hands “Revere her!” They cry from the ground “She is risen!”
“Love her!” They. They. They. Them below made me. I am a bird on a pedestal with iron chains around my neck. My wings are broken. The bones at my back snapped in two angled pieces that jut out from my disfigured spine. My tail feathers plucked and sewn into the skin of the dark creatures below. To remember me. To show they love me. They rip me to pieces. My heart hammers in my frail rib cage “Dearest death, won’t you free me? I am growing weary My bones feel like lead My beak tastes of charcoal and metals” I beg. Death does not respond. I choke on the exhaust fumes that leak from their gaping maws as they exude words that should be my own. No word is my own I am not my own Heart be humbled- my time is not my time I am simply a product of machinery engineered by shaky hands- my parts do not rotate or squeak the way they should I am unfinished and yet considered a masterpiece Label me a masterpiece of death and I will be your Angel of martyrdom. Kill me for your cause. Poison me for your beliefs. Stamp me out for your dreams. I am a woman on a pedestal with an iron uterus sealed to my womb The existence of me being defined by a part of me you’ll never see I beg to be unsexed so you will not look down upon me with the gaze of a thousand dark generations that loom just behind your crinkled eyes. Yet the form I take inside is one you do not revere- you see a devil where I see home- you see hell where I see peace. I open my mouth to call my name but the only sound that comes out is a lie A lie that roars from the voices of the beings below and pours out my throat as their minds collide with mine- I am not my own They’ve elongated again- their spines snapping and disjointing as they curl up towards me. Their backs a canvas of thinly stretched skin along wide bones as their bodies tear themselves to reach me. Their neck pops and snaps as their heads turn as if on a hinge They’re reaching for me “Feed her!” “Love her!” “Praise her!” I am a child atop a pedestal of marble- my skin is iron and my face a shielded mask of a smiling little girl. My true body rests inside She is the image you made of me The shadowy hands wrap around the statue child’s neck and hold her there They scream words of lost dreams they once had into her ears until blood begins to ooze from the metal canals of our brain The sounds fill my head like a hurricane as they rip away everything I hold to be true to myself It is agony I am dying My fists connect with the hollow shell innards of the girl as I scream and beg for you to free me My skin is peeled from my body leaving bloody fist marks as my hands connect with iron I am screaming I am begging They do not hear me. You do not hear me “Dearest death,” I whisper finally “Kill this part of me that lives inside and leave the shell. Let me not suffer anymore grief. The child will live on and serve her duty to them.” Death whispers backs “Will they be satisfied with a husk, little beetle?” “Yes,” I reply “a husk is what they desire. A soul is not.”