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Dear Suzie,

How are you doing?
Me? I'm not so great,
mommy beat me up today.
But breakfast was good,
got a big plate of gravel
and downed it with some water.
I even asked for a second serving
and she gave me all the bowl,
so nice of her! I said thank-you
and left my teeth on my plate
to be given to the poor.

But the past weeks have been so bad!
They made me go out in the streets
and beg for love with a broken cup in hand.
Everyone kept passing by, not looking,
not turning round, not even once,
and one who did smile down at me
proved out to be a liar;
he broke my cup against the floor.

Next I went out by the corner,
auntie's fiddle in my hand
and I played till crack of day,
with a shard of the old cup beside me.
I was no longer begging,
but now trying to win their hearts
with music made by me and others alike,
with lively dancing tunes
and heart-breaking wails of the fiddle's strings.
I played and played until my ears turned deaf,
yet all I ever got from it
was a sideways scornful look
and them spitting in my cup,
old piece of an old useless cup.

I then turned to cold dark alleys
that hid inside them lonely strangers
with hollowed eyes and ragged clothes,
pale skin and alluring legs.
I went among them and they made me one of theirs,
taught me how to look for men
who took us with them and again I tried
to earn a piece of warmth from them,
but the coins they paid me were cold
so I took my broken cup and left.

I even covered my face with a cloth
and entered banks and markets
and menaced them with my broken cup
to give me their hidden loved possessions
and feelings money could still buy,
but they just laughed again
and let the men with sirens take me away,
clutching the same old cup in my shaking hand.

They took me to a dark place,
a room with walls of steel,
they gave me a name tag and told me to behave.
The ones around me simply stared,
too lost in their own sins to see my plead.
When in the end they did,
they simply forced themselves upon me
and I froze; their hearts were so cold...
I learnt from them, though, the art
of taking what I want by force,
but those I would abuse were silent,
like stones being kicked about,
they screamed, but not really quite.
I was released from prison and my evil,
I even hit one of my past aggressors
with the sharp shard in my hand,
the cup had already been marred.

You see now, dear Suzie, why I write you this...
I wonder if even you understand
what I want to tell you, my only confident.
This morning was sunny, it was a perfect day,
I took a swig from daddy's rum
and took my eye out. You said it looked so nice
and that you liked what you saw in it.
After I finish this, I will hang myself
from the ceiling of my room.
That's why I won't be there giving you the eye
in a small green jar labelled "peas",
that will be my little dog on your threshold.
I'm not giving you the broken cup, though...
Because it's been so marred and dirtied
broken in so many places and I also fear
that you will add to the cracks
if I ever offered it to you.

Yours,
the boy with a broken cup.