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"Broken Toys", "Way We've Always Been"...by Scott Cumming




Broken Toys


I blamed myself for every broken toy

Back when I was a kid

And now I find out how fucked up that was

How a brain skewers a person

As I attempt not to cry into the webcam.



Way We’ve Always Been

There is an ungraspable sting

to seeing unloved personality traits

in your children

Knowing you’ve never figured out

ways to dampen your impatience

The beauty of their faces

shines like beacons

even through crowds of kids

I wonder how their features will change

figuring I’ll still see them this way

For how many generations is this how we’ve behaved?

Who were the wordsmiths among my ancestry?

Immigrants two generations removed

Earned the rights of restless natives now

Facsimiles of people gone before

with different last names

and places to call home

I call you two home

Try as I might

I can’t help but get frustrated

that the attention lavished

cannot meet the amount craved

Know too well

the time will come

when I’m banished

as nothing more than


an embarassment.



The Things Easily Forgotten

Feel a hand

Ripping at the base of your heart

and the pit of your stomach

The dozen of us asking

The same unanswerable question

What more we could’ve done

for someone who didn’t want the help

We drink to the best of us

The sweetest and kindest

Who yearned for the things we have

Even when he possessed

So much more than we could imagine

Tonight, we are each other’s

Emotional support peacocks

Clinging with laughter and tears

to the side of the cargo hold

Remembering things easily forgotten

Conjuring useless memories

That we never wanted to keep

No use for the internet

Except endless trivial queries

Carefully worded

To navigate algorithms

Steering us through a perceived life

The beginning of a life

Truly is the easy part

Reconciling an end

So bitter, so early

Unwarranted

the hardest part

Forgiving yourself

In the face of death

Takes a lifetime to do.




Scott Cumming unsuspectingly went to see Garden State wearing his Shins tee. He has been published at The Daily Drunk, Punk Noir Magazine, Versification, Mystery Tribune and Shotgun Honey. His poem, “Blood on Snow”, was voted the best of Outcast Press Poetry Things We Carry issue and nominated for a Pushcart. His collection, A Chapbook About Nothing, was released in December as part of Close to the Bone's First Cut series.

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