Teddy Bear
Dear Teddy Bear,
All torn, tattered, and tear-stained
With half of an ear eternally creased
How many nights have I spent alone?
To that half-bent ear, I have given my hopes, my heartbreaks, my childhood crushes
My sob stories, my love, and my deepest desires
Oh, if you could talk
If you could speak
You would have enough courage to tell him
To tell him that my heart is his.
Yet you can’t.
Frozen in a happier time, you see me fail again and again,
You watch as someone else climbs into my bed,
But you, you can tell that I’m faking it.
I know he isn’t the one.
You know he isn’t too.
Others’ expectations and my sense of responsibility weighs down upon my shoulders,
Yet you and I both know I can’t lift
So instead I suffocate silently beneath their solemn stares and deadly doubts.
I used to be able to sing my sorrows away like a nightingale
Or run through the wildflowers as a fairy queen,
But I’m too old for that now.
You no doubt still see me as a child, that same starry-eyed girl with bouncing curls
That used to drag you up the steps
One
By
One
But I am grown now
So you’ve been replaced by a bookbag full of AP prep books and cram materials.
You were a lot lighter
And a lot more comfy to sleep on.
In the end, thank you for being here.
Thank you for never leaving.
And thank you for being my best friend.
Yours forever,
L. Searing