#15

I broke my sister’s toy  
  
I was already mad,  
and when it suddenly dropped near me,  
something in me snapped.  
I raged,  
picked it up,  
and wrecked it.  
  
It sounds silly, maybe trivial,  
but now that my anger’s gone,  
all I can remember  
is how she proudly showed it to me.  
  
One evening, she called out:  
  
“Hey bro, look at this!  
Ain’t it cool?”  
  
It wasn’t that special.  
I’d seen many like it before.  
“Okay, cool,” I shrugged,  
telling myself she was being silly.  
  
I didn’t know then  
that it was one of the first things she bought  
with her own hard-earned money.  
And with all that childish innocence—  
that magical spark in her eyes—  
that I failed to see.  
  
In that moment, she was truly happy,  
and she tried to share it with me.  
And I—  
I… I’m really not a good brother.  
I really am  
a bad person.  
  
I apologized, told her I broke it.  
But my anger was still fading,  
and the words came out half-hearted,  
unapologetic,  
dutiful,  
empty.  
  
She simply said,  
“That’s a waste,”  
and moved on.  
  
But when the moment hit me—  
when I finally understood  
what I had done—  
tears ran down my face.  
  
What have I done?

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