She gave me comfort, and she held my hand,
That living doll who met me where I was.
One arm was limp and useless, one glass eye
Looked dead ahead, the other met my gaze.
The brightness of her smile was undimmed,
Those injuries gave meaning to her words
When she said, "nobody does not know pain,
But also do you not know tenderness?"
And she had known all kinds of tenderness.
"A toy well-loved might even come to life,"
She said, "and most of us were cared for well,
But I was not." The bluntness of her words
Belied a love I'd likely never know.
She was not someone destined for a shelf,
She had a purpose, she had served it well
For ninety years, a decade, and a day
One woman clutched her close, and every night
She had been crushed beneath the weight of love
Until it broke her, and her fur wore thin
And seams began to tear, and were stitched up,
And years went by, and people came and went
But Julian remained, one hundred years
Upon her lover's bed she spent her days
And in her lover's arms she spent her nights.
She did not speak of when the doctors came
And carried off her lover far away
But she spoke gladly of the moment when
A relative had seen her on the bed
And carried her down to the hospital
And placed her in her dying lover's arms.
So Julian's first breath was drawn right there
As her true love was drawing her own last
And in that moment, they looked eye to eye
And each one knew how real their love had been
And each one knew how good that moment was.
I told her that I hoped to feel such love
Some day, for someone, even for the span
Of just one breath, but Julian, she said,
"Such love does not last only for a breath
And every breath I take is breathed in grief
And glory, knowing that I was well-loved.
A love once felt can never go away
Though who you love will go, the love will stay."