She was found in a gutter,
in the trash,
at the bottom of an old piggy bank.
No one could remember where they placed her;
neatly tucked into the crevices of
old scraggly sidewalks
in desperate need of repair.
Her whole being was covered
in dust and grime,
shielded from the sun, from sound,
and the smell of flowers.
She was thrown in the tip jar,
but even the waitress forgot about her.
She wasn’t worth quite enough.
She was stuffed between couch cushions
and when mothers took the time to look between,
they would find her
and throw her back.
Dented and bruised, calloused,
her frame was crooked
and disfigured.
And on a Sunday in July,
she was buried beneath the grass
where she felt
little tiny fingers wrapped around her.
The child wiped off the muck
to figure when she was made.
She couldn’t remember when she was made,
she only remembered being broken.
The child held her up to the sun
and she felt the first warmth she had felt
in decades.
Holding her close, the child whispered,
“I have been searching for someone like you
for so long.”