drawing of a plush bunny wearing a bow around his neck He must have had a name, as all my plushies used to have names and most still do, but I don’t remember it.

He must have been the first rabbit plush in a small line of rabbit plushies that were my favourite.

My nameless friend, still named
Came with me, dressed to ski
To be reprimanded in preschool
I thought I was to show a piece of myself

Animals don’t wear clothes

not give it up to other people.
In the end
everyone else wanted him as little
as I wanted anything else.

    I try to see if there is any information where he came from. What he is made of. Who he is. Apparently, there is a brand called Linda in Bavaria. The internet only shows me women I do not know.

   His fur is a little matted. I assume I handled him a lot. I barely remember.

I watch TV on the harsh carpet
they’re inspecting the guts
drawing of a plush dog with floppy ears and a fluffy tail of a dog that looks like my own.
Cold plastic snout.
Toxic to children.
Why would they murder him?
Why would they make him like this?
I don’t know this yet.
He is toxic to them, too.

    Sometimes I am quite good at understanding that although something is temporary it is not less important to your life. During my first relationship the temporality of it never truly left my mind. I did not want to be the fool who believed their first love would last forever. Sometimes it feels like we retained nothing from back then, not even our genders, but I remember it was important to me anyway.

My memories are dead weight;
the less I remember the more I keep.

    I have a terribly bad habit of hoarding things.

    I started to put train tickets I finally had the resolve to throw away into my journal. They are contained and help me keep structure. Not sure if this is progress or regression.

Denn die Menschen ohne Seele
Mögen Dinge ohne Seele
Mögen Plastik
Und sie mögen es so gerne, weil es ihnen so ähnelt
Dieses Plastik

    I remember being really upset when I first read these lyrics. I must have been around eleven years old. I hated to be called soulless because I put too much love into my possessions, to the point I would refuse to eat gummy bears because they felt alive to me. Of course, I didn’t mind the gelatine in them or anywhere else. Other animal products were too disconnected from their source in my mind. It was easier to justify eating sausages than looking a gummy bear into its non-existent eyes and deprive it of its fleeting existence as a commodity.

    When you are very young some things can be quite charming to other people. Your favourite toy, your meek attitude towards strangers. You will grow out of it. You are seventeen years old, patching up a broken glass with translucent tape because you cannot bear throwing it away. You are diagnosed with a speech-related anxiety disorder. The clock is ticking. How long will you stay cute?

drawing of a plush clown with a floppy pointed hat It is true
Everything has a soul!
The thoughts we put into it
the love we share
The dead weight
suffocating in love
I own, I own, I own
You were a good friend to me
It is not you
Every day we press the button.
You gain a million dollars but
someone you do not know dies.
You betrayed me!
drawing of an apple Their souls are like ours:
toxic, wasteful, sad;
hopeful, gentle, soft
You are spoiled
like the apple you could not bear to eat
because it was too perfect

   Sometimes I catch myself thinking “I’m glad I bought this before, I couldn’t justify it anymore”, always accompanied by a pang of guilt. Just because the damage is done and you cannot trace it anymore does not mean it was worth it.

    Maybe if there were less things. Maybe if I wanted less, then my love could be pure. I would learn how to mend. I would learn how to lend. I would learn how to give. It would be less suffocating to take.