My toys are thousands of miles away.
My toys are under three feet of rubble.
They’re badly bruised. Their blood is creeping.

My toys, born on a Christmas morning.
A sad irony is painting lead on their shoes.
Tin playthings, but their god is plastic.

They’re confused when the clocks go back.
They wear tiny bandages
in hopes of garnering attention.
One thinks it’s a ball, but it’s a box.
One thinks it’s the box that it came in.
One thinks.

Long ago I left my toys out in the rain
and they’ve never forgiven me.
They won’t let me forget my humble beginnings,
how my mother had to scrub stairs
to pay for their comfortable lives,
how father ordered me to finish them,
how time conspired against us.

My toys are quiet now.
This is when they’re most dangerous,
hatching plots, planning revenge,
very real hate assigned
to their wheels and their eyes,
real thoughts turning over
in their trifling minds,
and almost-real emotions . . .

My toys are tired,
so I’ve put myself and them to bed.
We dream of Saturday mornings;
cartoons, pyjamas, cereal.
We share nightmares.
One is a game that can never be played,
another is a toybox burning down to the sand,
our features blobs melting,
the dolls lifeless, my green armies fled.