Recently my mother bought me a new Terry Pratchett book. I hugged her, naturally, and then she and my sister left the room. A minute or so later, I heard them talking about how all books should look beat-up and worn, to show that they were well loved—“Like the Velveteen Rabbit,” my mother said. Since I had just finished reading some of AStrangerToYou’s poems, I was already in a contemplating-life mood, so I was instantly inspired and started to write this.

I don’t know

What you want from me.

I’ve been trying

My whole life

To please you,

Acting like a little toy.

But I wasn’t

A good toy.

I just sat there

On the shelf

Unused.

I was your

Steadfast

Tin

Soldier.

And I don’t accept that.

I’ve been sitting for

A long time now.

Crying myself to sleep.

Wishing I could make myself

Take a stand.

Wishing I was valued.

I spent years on that shelf,

Too stupid to try to escape.

Just sitting there…

But I can still walk.

Still talk.

Still think.

And I know the difference between

Being admired

And

Being

Loved.

I’m sick of being

Your Steadfast Tin Soldier.

I don’t want to sit here

Unused

And

Unnoticed.

I want to be

Your Velveteen Rabbit.

But you don’t want worn velveteen.

You want shining tin soldiers.

Clean.

Orderly.

Distant.

And I’ll be damned if I’ll let that happen to me.

I’m not a god.

I can’t turn into tin for you.

If you don’t want velveteen,

Then I don’t want you.

It was hard to wrap that up. I was just trying to write about how people spend too much time trying to be accepted by the “in” crowd and how nonsensical it is to compete to have the attention of people who don’t really like you anyway and who you probably don’t genuinely like either. I have more of the view of the person in this poem—that if you have to strive for someone’s attention, if they treat you like you’re below them, and if you go to sleep crying over them, they’re not worth your time.

Review review review! Or…well… I suppose you don’t HAVE to, but not doing so proves that you are too HEARTLESS and CRUEL to GIVE A GIRL A SCRAP OF HAPPINESS! (runs off sobbing dramatically)