Title: Echo Ghazal
Fandom: Dollhouse
Rating: T
Length: 117
Content notes: Mental manipulation, dubcon mind control
Author's notes: A Ghazal style poem
Summary: Echo sees the world in nightmares


She swims thirty laps to be her best, streaming nightmares,
Curled safely in her own glass-topped nest dreaming nightmares.

The others make lovely art and eat their vegetables;
Each of them is hoping to impress, deeming nightmares.

Memories come and go like wisps in her fractured mind,
People, things she should not know or confess, teeming nightmares.

She wonders if she could ask the man in the bright room
Not to sleep in the chair of distress, gleaming nightmares.

She sees what lurks in the shadows, discomfort creeping;
Is she alone in her fierce distress, screaming nightmares?

If she were to admit what she sees, hears, thinks, protests,
Would mother be irate and lash out, scheming nightmares?