The first time I read this was at my Spotlight performance at the Storey gallery in Lancaster. My bear was made by me and a friend suggested naming him Bernard. He truly is uglily beautiful.
Mismatched Teddy Bear
I put you together in a mismatched form. I collected your arms, legs and head in the wicker basket behind my back door. I stitched your torso together with coloured thread and ribbon you look spectacular, a fabricated vision.
Your skin is soft to touch and a floral explosion of dainty twee prints and retro patchwork patterns. You are pretty to look at, tactile and plush but cold to love as you never grow old.
I tempt to put you on the shelf to collect dust and sit with the unused garden elves, but you are too pretty yet deformed to leave alone without a thought as I wonder how you will suffer without a hug or a mutter.
I unpick your thoughts with an rustic needle attached to pink coloured thread, you see I made a mistake when I sewed on your head.
But i make a hole in your stomach, where your stuffing silks out, looks like snow as I pull your insides out and it doesn’t hurt as I put pins through your skin you see it doesn’t hurt because you can’t feel a thing. As you treat my heart like a pincushion which bleeds unlike yours, it has too many holes and which can never be sewn.
As I sewed on your button eyes, you can finally see although through a criss-cross vision, you can peer at me as I cut through your thread with vintage scissors.
I scissor your vision as I cut through your thread and sew on your button eyes by making an embroidered incision. You cry through button holed eyes but you can peer at me, as i cut through your thread with vintage scissors. Your body is an eclectic mix of stuffing and fabric, but your heart is still intact and it bleeds tattered tears.
