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Paper Man<\/strong><\/p>\n At first, paper man, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mab Jones<\/strong> won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize for her collection ‘take your experience and peel it’ (Indigo Dreams), which this poem is from. The book was also shortlisted for the Gladstone’s Library Writer in Residence Award. http:\/\/www.indigodreams.co.uk\/mab-jones\/4592595599<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paper Man At first, paper man, I admired your cutting edge, Your inability to be anything more than See-through. I noticed you Folding in certain situations. I thought it was your nature. I watched you crumple, Poor screwed-up you, And I cried and cried. You had been punched, and You had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12599"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13490,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599\/revisions\/13490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI admired your cutting edge,
\nYour inability to be anything more than
\nSee-through. I noticed you
\nFolding in certain situations.
\nI thought it was your nature.
\nI watched you crumple,
\nPoor screwed-up you,
\nAnd I cried and cried.
\nYou had been punched, and
\nYou had been burned, and
\nI could see so many holes.
\nThe thought of flames hurting
\nYou, hurt me even more.
\nBut then I saw you taking the match
\nTo yourself, and I did not
\nUnderstand it. Tried to stop it, in fact.
\nBut you would find those matches
\nWherever they were hidden.
\nI told you it was over, and you
\nPosted yourself to me in an envelope.
\nLove me, you\u2019d written on the place
\nWhere your heart should have been.
\nHate me, was written over your pencilled cock.
\nI crumpled you into a ball
\nAnd threw you from the window, but still
\nYou returned \u2013 masquerading as a
\nBill, a letter, a Christmas card,
\nAn origami swan. And every time
\nI let you in \u2013 the fire, the smoke,
\nFilled my flat and my lungs. Licked at
\nMy heart. Paper man, I am tired of this.
\nThe water I throw just turns you to mulch,
\nMy pleas to stop are ignored.
\nI finally see that you don\u2019t have ears.
\nYou don\u2019t have a heart, either.
\nYou are so thin, now,
\nAnd you are just paper,
\nBut still you left me in cuts all over
\nWhile I in turn have changed to other
\nThings. Water. Wood.
\nFinally, to stone.<\/p>\n