She was such a prized thing. Her lips once so red; her skin born so fair. Her satin dress with the lace at the bottom was kept clean and tidy; her hair never fell out of place. For ages, she sat atop the highest shelf…a pretty thing to be admired.

And, oh–how they loved her. After all, she was a good and quiet thing. A thing with all the qualities that a pretty thing should have. They never asked her for her name or what she thought of current events, but they doted on her as they passed by.

It wasn’t the perfect life. Most days she was un-seen. Her voice was never really loud enough to reach a listening ear…but, at least there was light (and some occasional attention).

…but those days have long passed.

Now she sits amongst the shadows, in a stone fortress built just for her.

The things that broke her hollowed her out. Now there’s a mute mouse where her heart once was. On the quietest of days, she hopes to hear a beat in there, but the most she’s ever heard was the sound of the mouse snoring.

AC Rodriguez; The Porcelain Doll: Part 1 (Yes, another untold story)

I don’t know what this is, yet but a Porcelain Doll has been calling to me. It’s something inside, glimpsed at with a friend after a particularly broken day.

She is both mine and not mine at all.

She is mine in the way that she aches within me…in the way that she knows all my saddest songs and stories.

She is not mine in the way that those songs and stories were not sung just for me.

There is a fragility coming forth in the collective. We’ve been breaking down walls and shattering the chains that bind us…a collective so strong and determined for change.

Now we’re broken and we have to feel.

This is the hard part, love. It’s sitting alone with your pain in the darkest of night that brings you peace and healing…but we’re more fragile than we want people to think.

Yes, I think this is a story worth writing.