|| The Dollmaker ||

Tinkering under lamplight. I no longer feel my fingers - but having wrought them senseless, no real excuse bothers my lips. You, as ever, sit there without even a squawk as I bore clinks and clanks into your ears, made profound by the din of quiet. Since you do not speak, your eyes sear. That is for the best. I have never dealt well with verbal diahorrea.

A tilt of the head. I give myself the leisure of a smile. Are you curious? No, not just yet. Wait until I finish - this is, for you, after all. The prospect of finishing endears the effort I have rushed into making all of it. I just need to whip myself a little harder; it's as if I lie prostrate on the cusp of life.

Reward deigns me a sigh. Habit dictates my lips to invoke your name.

Adrienne.

Curves forming on the face. A blank moment of bliss, then ripping quickly back to the present. I cup you - two hands, infinite care! – and lock you into perfection. Mind and body weaves together.

Soul, I bequeath. A brush of the lips; a passionate kiss; a consuming moment.

You only blink.

Acid eats my heart. I rip you apart and destroy my latest work; my toes scream at me, but as my heart shrivels to a mass of repressed tears, the blood that flies is just - color. I raise you on the pedestal again and rue pinches my eyebrows together.

Never enough soul. I grit to slave away at another creation for your perfect vessel. Worry not dear; you are not at fault, it has always been my imperfect heart. Your dull eyes chastise me. I will make them shine this time!

Tinkering away again, under lamplight.

> || Lenia. two ||