For my sixteenth birthday
My partner at the time got me
This doesn’t seem that egregious on the surface
The teddy was cute enough
“I saw him in a charity shop
I think I remember her saying that.
It was a long time ago now.
But the thing is, is that at the time
I didn’t mind, it didn’t really matter to me
I was Sixteen, I was having a party,
I wasn’t going to sit around
Consider what it could have represented
That you got me something so impersonal
A teddy from a charity shop seems like a symbol of what was to come.
Most sixteen year olds get something nice
That while other friends got me crystals for my collection
But a teddy? It feel so shallow;
That you knew enough about me
To know that I loved my teddybear,
But with not enough foresight to see
That they are special because they persisted through to maturity,
That childhood cannot be replicated by playing pretend
That sixteen and seven are different.
Like I was a mother with a surprise child.
“My mother said I should have got something different,
But I knew you would like them.”
And there was no consideration at all that she could have been right,
That she could have understood what a sixteen year old girl would want.
I think that teddy says everything I needed to know about how you saw me.
That to you, I was never going to be more than the girl who had a crush on you in middle school
That we would prove them wrong
Unfaltering, unexamined young love.
That I didn’t mind being constantly handed your life’s inconveniences,
That I never needed to be treated like a girlfriend because that would cause you too much distress
That your words were stronger than your actions
And that all this could be ignored as the nature of your being was tragic and unchangeable.
That to you I was child and mother,
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