I still remember the pain,
Of the price tag coming off.
The parents who had saved every penny,
To buy this for their daughter,
Must have felt it more.
It hurt still.

I was wrapped up in cheap gift paper,
Lovingly, by the mother,
Hidden under the bed the night before her birthday,
I sat there wondering what she would be like,
This girl who I knew was to be my owner.
I forgot the hurt.

She was so very little back then,
She had such few toys to play with.
I became her best (and sometimes only) friend.
She spent every morning with me,
Every afternoon with me,
Every night she hugged me tight,
Before she went to sleep.
Somehow, it did not hurt.

She called me blue, and in her blues I helped her.
I was with her on the first night before school.
She cried on my fur the day her heart first broke.
That day she came home wondering if her parents could smell the smoke,
She hugged me close.
That day she missed graduating by a mark she broke a clump of my fur.
The day she left for college she stuffed me in her bag.
Took me out and put me in.
I was hurt - but more for her hurt than mine.

And then she grew up, this little girl of mine.
She became successful, became rich.
But she never forgot.
She took me with her in the bathroom the day her father died.
When she fought with her husband, she would seek comfort in my fur.
And I always wanted to hurt the people who had hurt her.

And then years later it was the tenth birthday of her first child.
She wrapped me up with trembling hands.
Patched and dusty as I was.
She gave it to him that morning.
He tore it open with eager hands.
But the eagerness soon turned to sorrow.
He asked her why she couldn't get him something better,
Something new.
She didn't say anything, bought him a new toy,
And took me away.
And I thought about hurt.

The next night she looked at me closely,
And started crying,
At the lifetime of memories,
That were intermingled in my dirty blue fur,
And then with sad eyes,
She put me in a large box,
In a dusty attic,
And I never saw her.
I hope it hurt her as much as it hurt me.