Teddy Bear

Fur, a bit synthetic
Comes in any color, every texture and all the shapes imaginable
Unrealistic animals on children’s beds
With plastic noses glass eyes and stitched together faces
Stuffed with cotton.
That’s a teddy bear, silent and snuggly,
Filled with T-shirt material in a less processed form
We wear the sterilized insides of children’s toys
On our chests.
We’re not monsters because they’re not alive
Bears.
Raw and big less threatening than they look,
The misunderstood war heroes of the animal kingdom,
With jaws and teeth, rubbery noses and narrowed eyes
Outraged.
Restless animals and soft toys and humans
The destroyers of the living ones.
The cotton brings guilt we remember the slaves
We remember the work into our clothes
We remember the bears,
We stuff the toys with shame as we go
against the name of the animal that represents strength,
The cotton is the shame
Wiped off makeup that wasn’t good enough
Gauze pads for wounds
Thread to sew up imperfections
How do we handle the cotton when we cannot handle
The bears?
Cuts are stuffed with guilt and padding
The world is just a shame filled factory
Replacing all the infants with stuffed animals,
We look at only toys not
Fear or heart
How do we handle the bears when we cannot handle
The cotton?