by Gregory Maggard

Created on: April 25, 2008

THE JEALOUS TOYS

My son Sean is eight years old,
And just like most young boys,
He gets a lot of things to play with,
All kindsa games and toys.

And he gets plenty of use out of them,
Some he's played with for years.
But most of them sit in the closet,
Fighting back the tears.

All these jealous child's playthings,
Are facing impending doom,
They actually took time to talk to me,

One night while cleaning Sean's room.

He has this cantankerous plow truck,
The one with the overworn lever,
It was a Tonka, and he was quite upset,
"Sean hasn't played with me in forever".

Okay, wait a minute, I'm talking to toys?
Then another voice caught me off guard,
"I havent been shuffled in over a year",
Said Poke'mon, his fuming trading cards.

Then Mr. Lincoln Logs began to complain,
As he climbed to the top of the pile,
"We used to build GREAT forts together,
But Sean hasn't played in a while".

Tickle Me Elmo came from the bottom,
"My batteries have long been dead,
I've been crushed by this big heap of toys,
See this big dent in my head?"

"I played with Sean more than any one else",
Thomas The Tank Engine said.
"We used to build this enthralling city,
Now, he'd rather play Lego's instead".

The remote control car then spoke up,
"We used to play all over the place,
Going real fast and jumping through hoops,
Now the dog has nothing to chase!".

I heard from them all, the Little Tyke chair,
The farm animals, the dissatisfied barn,
The Superball, the countless board games,
All taking their turn with this yarn.

Then they all started complaining at once,
They cried with frantic irrationality,
"To Sean we're just a frivolous salvage yard",
They said with impatient reality.

With almost mind numbing insanity,
They cried, and pleaded their case,
"When Sean grows up, we'll all be gone,
All this a horrendous, empty space".

I thought about what the jealous toys said,
The sadness, their hearts grown weary.
They were right, they would be gone,
They had a very plausible theory.

Sadly, I closed the closet door,
It was time to turn in for the night,
I gave a kiss to my sleeping son,
Walked out, turned off the light.

I still heard noises from the room,
I went back to the closet to see,
They stared, and all screamed in unison,
"Please get rid of the damn PS3!".

I shook my head in disbelief,
It had become a laughable matter,
"Shut up, you guys, you'll wake up Sean!,
Enough of all this clatter!".

The next day, I had to explain to my son,
About how they talked last night.
"They need to be played with again" I said,
He said "you know Dad, you're right".

So off we went to Goodwill,
After Sean packed the jealous toys,
He agreed to give them away graciously,
So they could play with other boys.

Until now an unrealized coincedence,
What happened on this eventful day,
My dad said the same thing to me, I was eight,
"So my toys could be happy and play".

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