Not a Real Boy

If his heart could beat

It still would mean nothing

Because it beat without reason.

His father had long since left him to rot away

The human lifetime too short to match the lifetime of a doll

The empty house that creaked around him

spoke volumes of his loneliness

That he, himself, could not express

through his painted eyes that could not cry

His fake smile that could not become a frown

Even as he watched his father fall,

overworked with his hair completely gray

Even when his father’s chest failed to rise again

And his blue eyes stared blankly into the night

As another star joined the sky