– Hand Me Down –
When I was a little girl,
my toys were made from the ruins
of the adult lives around me,
hand me downs that were never clean
of their former memories,
never completely let go of
by those who had broken them
in the course of their rougher play.
And when that damage
was passed down onto me,
I too became a broken thing,
a casualty of their aggressions,
a hand me down to tear apart
and stitch back together again,
given on to the next generation,
on to the next iteration
of their careless consequences.