Remnant

You were a stuffed rabbit with gangly limbs and a black nose smooth as silk. You were a gift, an Easter-day present from eons past, from a life much, much simpler than today, I believe. You had a twin that I preferred—bright green and yellow to your gloomy purples. You were what I ended up with, second best, much to my chagrin, but I promised to love you forever anyway. You might have had a name once—many names—because I'd crown you thusly only to forget and strip you of your titles, bestow upon you new ones and forget again, over and over, ad nauseum, until one day I forgot to name you at all, then the next, and the next, and suddenly you were an undignified peasant in a wasteland of smooth linen sheets and cotton stuffed pillows. You weren't the first of your kind, nor the last, but from amongst the rubble and the piled bodies waiting to be discarded, I remembered you had a twin and I reached out and reclaimed you unto the end, this so-called promise of forever and now—now you sit at the foot of my bed, stuffed into corners, forgotten, until I'd blindly, on rare nights, grope around to find you. You are old and grey and full of sleep, a bag of rags I offer half a thought to when I see your once silk smooth nose, now nothing more than frayed and tattered threads. You had a twin once, given to someone I once thought the world of and now don't think of at all. You are like her, a relic of the past, the manifestation of my inability to lay it to rest, my stuttering attempts to hold on and let go all at once.