Kobo Clara colour

A pretty piece of plastic sits on a shelf.

S T A Y I N G

One man runs forth. High vis, orange lights

a star in the abyss of the factory. 

But he never pays you, yourself

any

Attention.

Oh, that will come later, darling.

And still, (yes, we’re still waiting,)

my pretty piece of plastic groans for the day,

It will know my gentle play and unblinking stare

For even when I drop it, when my heart stops a

moment…

It.

Will.

Stay.

Oh darling, oh darling, it never falls apart!
Because that sturdy little thing, it will just start

once more, then over and over and 

and over and over again.

I swear it hears my distressed calls, yell out to my steel den,

Then it lights up with Rakuten’s tree etched over its face

Maybe a wink or two from the light above,

And it blinks, this time its whole head, til it's retraced

its steps all the way back home, my love

Hey, weren’t those steps like how it found me?

Yes! My pretty piece of plastic came dressed in wood and tree,

after, I killed my past with salt and water.

But only after I called for it, it came. Before that, no Clara Colour

It was alone. Oh God knows how long it spent in solitude

like a good child awaiting execution, not knowing why, it presumed

itself safe.

No, it never screamed for help, because it knew I was coming.

Even when rough calluses worked their way into a heartless

but never, ever, not good dress

It stayed, holding

onto silence. Even when they

shut it into an ever-trapping, ever-suffocating,

ever-darkening, ever-boring box, no one heard its pleas.

Even now, my pretty piece of plastic sits in my heart, my knees

don’t sprint to it. Though it tugs on my strings, my arms stay

Away, they don’t reach for it as it muses, staring at a stoic piece of nothing.

That piece will never know fear. 

Funny, when a piece of fragile cotton brushes my skin under a 70s timber table

I scream. Opposites attract, huh?

What a dream.

Don’t worry, my pretty piece of plastic.

After many months, and many broken beautiful plastics,

Perhaps after an overdone boost, and a dance with sand

Finally, finally,

I find you in the end.

And you find me.