Perfect Daughter, Paper Doll

Every girl likes paper dolls

When you make them it’s so fun

You get to fix their hair and outfits

Create ideas for them while their young

But paper dolls they stretch and grow

They embrittle, and they crease, they discolor as they age

Disappointment settles in on a once most hopeful page

My sister is the perfect daughter

Mother told her to be so

From her hair and to her face

mother sculpted her from clay

With all the hopes she had for me now withered with decay

My sister is a sweet girl

She knows what cards to play

To keep my mother smart and right

Her own feelings held at bay

I watch my mother mold, shape, and meld every dream that she once held

Into my little sister no opinion to possess

I watch my mother work for hours

To paint her perfect daughter with obsess

I sit and wait, a paper doll in her withered dress

Oh to be the perfect daughter

What shoes she has to fill

A beautiful claymation

Next to her sister’s paper still

Now sisters share their secrets

Like how to avoid the kiln

My sister covers me with laminate

As I glaze her specks and scumming

I may not be the perfect daughter

But I’m a sister who’s worth loving