Written by Lisa Roullard
Small, like me, it fit
my hand, the pink plastic
smooth against my palm.
A thumb-push
against the ridged sliding switch, click!
and the light would shine.
All mine!
Yet it came with a rule:
no playing with it
outside.
But I did.
And I dropped it, crack!
on the concrete. My mom
spotted the broken corner.
“What happened?” she asked.
My throat tightened. “I
don’t know.” My first lie.
And somehow
she knew it. Scolded,
“How can I
trust you now?” My switch
pushed to a different
place, how could I trust
myself? Little
broken light
that I was.
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Lisa Roullard resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her family and Onyx the black cat. Her poems for children can be found in Little Thoughts Press, The Toy, The Dirigible Balloon, and Parakeet.
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