As a child they could not keep me from toys

And bionicle sets with new pumps and screws

I loved the bright packaging, the restrained action figures, the smells

of cheap labor, plastic and toxic paint

One in a gray container, with a screwable top

I savored the rich satisfaction when a Titan

rose at the end of copious construction

So perfect you saw no difference from the image on the instruction booklet

A pink one under a bubbly plastic covering

Fructified like soft cotton candy swirls

When you flexed its long arms from the soft flesh

A vein popped out the dragonballed body

Others had accesories, allowed you to become the figure like a suit of armor

With an innocent new soul and curiosity inside it. And one

Was scaresome, for there, out of red eyed dragons and Kemetian

gods, a friend could be lost.

Now, to pry open packages, to finger in bolts,

To build steroid infused He-Man, out my old soul

Is beneath all Black adolescent dignity. I write