That's the Job

I was never just cotton and cheap thread,
some toy from a shelf
nobody remembers buying.

I was the thing she grabbed
when the yelling started
and her old man's face turned ugly
and her mother said,
"get your shoes, we're leaving now."

we didn't have much.
we had a garbage bag for a suitcase.

we had the back seat of a rusted VW
and a gas station sink
with a bar of pink soap
somebody left behind.

I saw all of her.

the kid who cried into my fur
because monsters wore
her father's face.

the teenager
eating ice cream from the carton
on a night
other girls danced with boys
who bought them corsages.

the grown woman
who kept falling for men
who thought love
came with a fist attached.

the apologies she never heard.
3 a.m. "wyd?" texts.
the names she said she'd forget
and didn't.

I didn't do anything
with what I knew.

I just held it.

that's the job.

you hold what nobody else wants to carry
until you're worn out
and reek of someone else's life.

now I'm on the highway shoulder,
stuffing coming out one side,
and maybe that's the end of it.

if it is, fine.

bears weren't stuffed to save anybody.

we didn’t know that.

I just hope she finds a place
she doesn't have to run from
at 2 a.m.

I have been trying to get better at editing and digging deeper (not sure I'll ever reach the bottom).

This is a reworking of a poem I posted a couple of days ago. Here's the original if you want to compare and let me know what you think of either or both:

https://vocal.media/poets/threadbare-a52742ad9d