You are done with the dolls
you announce, no more
than what I already knew.
I tried to lay my regret
on how they have been
lying lumped there
all this time, unused.
(We all deserve the joy
of use.) But now I see
that your childhood
has slipped out a side door
when we weren’t looking
or maybe got lost in the move
with that fabled one box
holding all the bits and pieces
we still can’t find
NaPoWriMo, Day 23.
Graceful Press Poetry 
Another perfectly wrought poem, Jennifer – such wistful longing – had me teary. Really beautifully written, really.
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Thank you very much, Kathleen. This one took some extra work to feel “right,” so I’m really glad you connected with it.
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::sniff::
A tender look at a moment in your heart. Thanks for this – we’re getting there ourselves.
I love the bracketed aside as well as this:
…childhood / has slipped out a side door…
And the fleeting, trailing off thought that perhaps it got lost in that box.
Lovely – made me sniff, but lovely.
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It’s all good, really, and to watch your kids growing into beautiful, confident young adults is amazing. But I think we deserve a little sniff now and then, for all our hard work. 🙂
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I guess I’m not the only person who felt sad reading this. I like how The Course of Our Seasons put it “wistful longing.”
Our girls still have most of their dolls–and by that, I mean they’re still here at our house. 🙂
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Just as I’m pretty sure some of my things are still at my mother’s…
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You know, I had the opposite reaction as to wistfulness – I’ve felt only relief at getting rid of childhood things of my son’s. But, he has long since grown up, at a week short of 28 years old and married now. They are from a part of my life that seems as if it happened to someone else. I must also mention that I am a relentless thrower-outer and have little attachment to most things. But my son, on the other hand, as he sorts through the boxes we saved, feels just as your poem says – he mentioned how emotional it was to revisit the past this way, to my surprise! In any case, I love how you put the situation and even though it’s skewing a bit differently in my family, you have caught the feelings. I love it.
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It’s that whole mix of messy human emotions. Relief can certainly be part of it–toys especially take up so much space.
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In our case it was 12 years of pre-college school papers and so on. How can you throw out the second grade, you think, but you can, once it has been long enough!
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That fabled box with so many important and useful things in it—I wonder where it ended up? With ours maybe. Very very poignant poem.
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Perfect. And heartbreaking.
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