The Boy I Used to Play Dolls With || Holly Walker

by Holly Walker

i rode a mustard colored musty school bus

every morning and every afternoon

from home to school

from school to home

and nathan f. used to pick on me

for whatever reason

maybe it was because my mom let me

play barbie dolls 

and his mom hid his dollhouse

and i didn’t know what to do

so i watched him sob

near his ant farm

by his bedside table

and i didn’t know why his mom did that

since they were barbie dolls

they were just barbie dolls

mrs. nathan f’s mom 

and so i cried

because i was nine years old

and my mom so happened to be there

at the bus stop

to shout

STOP BULLYING MY DAUGHTER,

NATHAN. 

and then his cries began to

intertwine with the sound of mine

as his skechers hit the pavement

and all he could scream was

I’M GONNA TELL MY MOMMY.

and then my mom screamed

GO TELL YOUR MOTHER.

TELL YOUR MOTHER TO MEET ME ON THE STREET.

i lived in a neighborhood

with only little boys as friends to play with

on the weekends

and to walk home with

and all they could do was stare

at the loud jewish woman

screaming in the middle of the road

on a wednesday afternoon.

Image Credit: BBC

MEET THE POET:

HOLLY WALKER (she/her/hers) is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington studying Creative Writing. She owns the business “Holly’s Typewriter Poetry” where she writes on the spot poetry on her typewriter.