Poem: Paper Chains

by Amy Mitchell

I am a paper man, bound by paper chains.

We scream silently, numbers in a game,

Our plight dulled to invisible bloodstains.

Glory, they say. No dancing bones, no shame

As friends become numbers. We ravage them,

Taunting; haunting. Choose feathers over lies.

But we are nothing now, just an emblem,

A postcard, yellow, though still she cries.

He stands and reveres a life unlived:

I writhe, suffocating, in no-man’s dust.

My remains are sold, carved by care contrived

A violent struggle, a paper head unjust.

My life a sentence on an unread page,

As a lady lays a rose on a fresh grave.