Since I already wrote an ode to books early on in the challenge, I had to choose a different everyday object as the focus on my poem for Day 9. The first thing that popped into my mind comes from a cornerstone of my childhood: Saturday morning cartoons.

Shoutout to every 90’s kid who watched Rugrats religiously and these days finds themselves resonating with Chucky’s exclamation as he runs away from a scary grown-up, boss lady Anjelica: “I’m getting outta here Tommy. I wanna be little again, I don’t wanna be a big people anymore!”

Real talk Chucky, me either.

xo, adrienne

When my brother gave me

a soft, lime-green dinosaur

on our 31st birthday,

I cried

Bright orange eyes

stared up at me,

his little T-rex arms wrapped

around a pink fleece blanket

that was covered in his likeness

I hugged his tiny body close to mine

and he whispered,

“Halt, I am Reptar,”

and the 8-year-old girl inside

swallowed me with her smile

I didn’t know a stuffed animal could feel like joy

I didn’t know joy could feel like healing