Paper People

Photo by Ines Gemein on Unsplash

by Jenny Morelli

I wake to itches I can’t scratch, to air tickling my skin, to the reality that I’m drowning in papyrus. Only my face protrudes. I can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t speak or scream.

Skin’s brittle. Wrinkled. Ready to tear. So dry. So parchment.

Words skitter across my face like ants into the holes where my eyes should be, latching onto my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams.

Words swirl into those holes, form pupils to let me see what I’m hearing. A rip-rip-tear frees a paper person from the page, then another, then another. Paper people surround me, bound silent by words, tethered to the page with trains of sentences trailing behind them in long shadows like capes, like answers to questions we cannot ask.

We’re stuck to the page, pop-up palimpsests of all the stories we’ve ever read, of all the characters we’ve ever met, of all the selves we’ve longed to be.

Here we remain. Faceless. Mouthless. Silent paper people itchy with letters and words and ideas scampering endlessly over us and under, around us and through. We’re half formed and fully sentient, imprisoned on this page, praying to the paper gods a candle won’t tip and singe our crinkled cheeks, praying to the paper gods that hot tea won’t spill, that someone will notice us, will read us and won’t cry fat tears that dissolve us entirely after learning our fate.

I used to dream of climbing into the stories I read to escape my grim reality by dancing with wild things and velveteen rabbits and golden geese, but now that I’m here, I can only hope my imagination can help me arrange these words into an exit, an end, a way out of this nightmare, or else I must succumb to the grim reality that I’m just another avid reader who fell victim to a dream she desperately wanted fulfilled.

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Jenny Morelli is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, cat, and myriad yard pets. She seeks inspiration in everything around her. She’s published in several literary magazines including Red Rose Thorns, Spillwords, Scars tv, and Bottlecap Press for four poetry chapbooks. Check out her website for more: JennyMorelliWrites.com