Beyblade

This is day four of the five-day June OpenWrite at Ethical ELA, and I have not followed the prompt, but written my own poem: 

Beyblade

He was an eight year old

Beyblade, yes, he was,

when I first met him.

Do you know this spinning toy?

Very popular with his peers,

tough on teachers,

hard on the outside,

something mysterious within -

wound tightly, tighter, tighter, then

EXPLODE!

My preschool room was

a calming space he visited

every now and again

through the years.

He would mold clay or sand,

banter with the children, and

I would wonder

how often

is he free

to be

a little boy?

Who is holding him tightly and loving him dearly?

Year in, year out,

he continued

hard on the outside,

something mysterious within.

Today,

just eight years later,

all of 16 years young,

our Beyblade is arrested,

charged as an adult.

Frederick Douglass said it would be easier

to build strong children than to repair broken men,

yet we have failed him,

this child,

with still undiscovered mystery within.