Joyless Children’s Games in Western Art History

no, Elizabeth

I cannot let you play with the hoop

it is so great a diversion you would be overcome with delight and swoon dead away

Thomas says holding the miniature portraits is every bit as frolicsome as having the circle and stick

Thomas is a damned liar

the hoop will roll

and the stick will push

and i will run behind

and nothing will change

nothing will ever change

yes, it pops out of the box every time

excessively diverting

is this all you do all day, Charles?

and this will be my life, then

blocks can only alleviate sorrow

they cannot cure

a jump rope, a noose

no difference

no difference

if only i could jump away from myself

who is really being controlled here

which is the toy and which is the boy

in the end, perhaps it does not matter

riding you means nothing

perhaps even cruelty has lost its zest, now at the end

I don’t

I think perhaps I don’t want to wear matching Orientalist garb as we ride imaginary horses into the Bosporus any longer

please end this

[Images via here]