I AM AN OBJECT

I AM AN OBJECT
…an exploratory poem…

Do you want me?
Please want me.

How much will you pay for me?
I must know my true value.
I must demand my true value.

I am an object.

I’ve painted myself up to gain your approval.

I’ve got the right credentials, my certificates of authenticity.

I am an object.

What sort of leash are you offering me?
What are the terms and conditions of my agreeing to be yours?

I am an object.

I’d be willing to let you touch me and hold me, for a price.

I am an object.

Without a buyer I may as well not exist.
Put my head on the chopping block.
Oh wait, someone liked my Facebook post!
This person texted me back!
My good news had finally arrived!

I am an object.

The tension of my nervous system depends on how you interpret my societal status.
The hotter my lover is, the hungrier my client becomes.
My role on this planet is making everyone jealous, and so they will buy me.

I am an object.

I can’t see I’m an object, because that would interfere with my human rights persona.
I can’t see I’m an object, because I need to be angry when people objectify me.

I am an object.

Give me honk, a tug, a taste…sample me until I feel used.
Hurt me a little but not too much.
Don’t remind me of my humanity, or this object will cry. This object will implode.

Just as a star is an object.
Just as a tree is an object.
Just as this sentence is an object.

I am confused. Or perhaps just fused.
To all of these ideas of what I really am.

I am terrified of actually being just nothing.

If this mirror won’t lie, I’ll find a mirror that will.

-The Collective Illusion

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