Childhood

I don't play with dollies... Barbie and Ken were sold to a little girl at a garage sale many years ago. My crayons are motionless and my coloring books have faded yellow with age. All my games like Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, and Life are packed in a box somewhere in the attic collecting dust. My mother no longer tells me to go to bed Or to be in at ten o'clock. She doesn't kiss me goodnight or tuck me in. I close my bedroom door by myself at night. I undress in the blackness, for the nightlight burned out long ago. And when I crawl into my single bed, I reach for my teddy bear, and tears fall into the darkness.