ORIGIN: Ponytails don’t become us and way back when, we used to share a teddy bear. It was snow white and it absorbed our laughter and our tears. It’s still lying around somewhere and maybe that’s why sometimes it feels like we are still of one mind.
Teddy bears are meant to be hugged. They are soft long before they are well-worn. That’s all well and good, but I want knots in my hair. Something that can break even the sturdiest comb. Every child is predisposed to love. We might learn the word love from someone else, but we are the ones that cry and open our arms first. And I don’t think I am asking for too much. I want something that can’t be undone. Someone that stays in my life, not just in my heart. Like a scar. Of what should have been.
Paper cups and string. I remember other children making telephones in class and thinking that I would rather drink a warm glass of moonlight. I already had you, what did I need that flimsy string for? We used to comb each other’s hair before going to sleep. I remember your voice in my ear. Like hugging a teddy bear. I knew your dreams by heart and you knew mine. I wasn’t afraid of pulling your hair. You weren’t on the other side of a telephone waiting to hang up and go back to your life. Who knows, maybe if we hadn’t grown up having to say I love you by phone and getting a distorted Sweet dreams in return, I would have room in my heart for people whose facial features I have all but forgotten.
They were old enough to know how the word love is spelled, but they tasked this short-haired teddy bear with making me happy nonetheless. That first hug razed my heart to the ground. It hurt, and I swore then and there that I would be happy no matter what. I razed my hair to the scalp. Then I watched loneliness grow. As soon as I felt a heartbeat of happiness, I reset the timer. Hoping to one day resemble that teddy bear that had to know more than just love’s spelling. But loneliness kept growing, and I realized that my teddy bear had to resemble me. I gutted it. Out came the cotton. In went that unbearable tangle of lonely hair. I needed someone who understood the longest part of my life, not just one or two heartbeats. But it was too late. I had already grown up.
It’s like having a fishbone stuck in my throat. Knots in my hair I can’t comb out. I want to cry, but these tears just won’t flow. We grew up with a teddy bear between us. I used to hug it to sleep. I wanted honeyed dreams. Something that wouldn’t leave at dawn’s first light. You used to scream into its heart. All the anger you wanted to put to sleep. Before it reduced you to ashes the color of winter and you froze to death. Loving that teddy bear was effortless. I was scared of your anger. I didn’t want it to ruin my dreams. Did you hate my closed eyes? Only that teddy bear knows. Now the magic is gone. I am not an invulnerable child anymore. My dreams are assailed by regrets and other maladies of growing up. And I just wish I hadn’t taken the easy way out. Maybe if I had hugged you, a sliver of magic would have stayed embedded in my heart.