Before you had a name for anything,
you had one of us.
you had one of us.
Bears.
The word bears two lives inside it, and neither one
is an accident.
The word bears two lives inside it, and neither one
is an accident.
A noun — the small stitched thing you slept beside.
A verb — to bear, to carry, to hold something heavy without putting it down.
Every child who ever had one was already doing both without knowing it.
We are the first thing you loved that wasn't your mother, and wasn't quite you either.
Not a person. Not a toy.
A place to put a feeling too large for a small body to hold alone.
You grew. We didn't disappear.
We went where the rest of childhood went — not gone, just unvisited.
Still carrying what you handed us the day you stopped needing to carry it yourself.
A verb — to bear, to carry, to hold something heavy without putting it down.
Every child who ever had one was already doing both without knowing it.
We are the first thing you loved that wasn't your mother, and wasn't quite you either.
Not a person. Not a toy.
A place to put a feeling too large for a small body to hold alone.
You grew. We didn't disappear.
We went where the rest of childhood went — not gone, just unvisited.
Still carrying what you handed us the day you stopped needing to carry it yourself.
Michael Kaza's hand found us again without looking.
No sketch, no plan — the pen moving on paper the way dreams move, ahead of any decision to move it.
What came out wasn't a bear you'd want to hug.
Stitched.
Watching.
Holding a body that isn't quite an animal's and isn't quite yours.
That's the part people don't expect: we were never meant to comfort you.
We were meant to be honest with you.
There's a difference, and your unconscious has known it since before you could talk.
Color us, and you're not decorating a bear.
You're marking the places on your own body where something was beared too long, too quietly, too well.
Stitched.
Watching.
Holding a body that isn't quite an animal's and isn't quite yours.
That's the part people don't expect: we were never meant to comfort you.
We were meant to be honest with you.
There's a difference, and your unconscious has known it since before you could talk.
Color us, and you're not decorating a bear.
You're marking the places on your own body where something was beared too long, too quietly, too well.
