Statues

a poem by @tiiimezombie

2025-09-20

I am a statue.
10 feet tall, taller with the pedestal.
I commemorate victory
My skin is greening, something natural for copper.
I don’t think about it.

I don’t know when I started reflecting on my life.
When I started thinking at all.
Statues are quiet.
Statues don’t socialize.
Statues don’t want things.
Things just happen.

I hear the birds.
I see a quarter of the tourists.
I saw a couple kilometres of roadside before my sculptor delivered me.
Statues don’t complain about not moving and not seeing.
Or at least I’ve never heard one complain.
Statues just are.

I have been for a couple decades.
I am quiet.
I don’t complain.

I don’t think my life could get better than this!

But sometimes
When the sky darkens
And my skin cools
I do see her.

I don’t want to.

I
I don’t like thinking about this.
She’s beautiful
She’s fashionable
Everyday she looks up with a lopsided smile
Like she knows something about me
Statues don’t feel pain but it’s excruciating

I don’t have a stomach
So I’m talking out of my ass when I say I Feel Something when I look at her
She moves freely
She dances in front of me sometimes
And she bows at the end
And she waves to me when she leaves
Beckoning
Why?

I am not complaining when I say I can’t move
I am not complaining when I say I can’t experience joy
It is not a complaint against my existence when I see her and I wish every part of me were different

I am a statue
Things can’t change for me
I have a role in life and that’s to stand as an image of someone else
Someone else who can move and have agency
Someone else who can live

So I don’t think about her
I don’t name the feelings
When she leaves and she blows me a kiss Every Day I DO NOT FEEL ANYTHING

I am a statue

I look forward to the rust that takes my heart

This is a poem by something assigned male at birth.