B4

So I hit my second grade teacher with a ruler and barely missed her eye. The story long, boring drenched in old school racial slurs and mordent postmodern spirituals. I often wonder the trajectory of my life, had I been a better shot, or a male child. Surely a stint at Spofford. My opponent, Ms. Burger a throwback of a woman, thought I to be a monkey swinging thru the African bush, and shared this freely with my six year old mind. Yet it was she who resembled a wart hog. Her slur though heard by one and all not grounds for a dismissal. Instead we were forced to rumble in cage match stillness dividing up macro fractions with my hands now folded "neatly on desk."

Thus began the arduous task of schooling Shorty left-hand. The teachers grew afraid of her complicated "airs" tried to package her intellect and ship the girl off to prep school with speeches of grandiose American dreams. Pint-sized Shorty left-hand could barely carry her rage-filled notebooks and had no time for dreams of any nationality, she pragmatic slide rule pitcher.... Legend grew when pops almighty entered the schoolyard with a length of tan leather wrapped in righteous indignation and beat her in front of the assembled - Ms. Burger spinning with delight. The lips did not quiver nor did she shed a tear, her legs bloody as a kill on the African savannah.

The story unfinished as Shorty would live to fight again, defending her young soul from project dope fiends, cracked-out perverts and assorted trenchant ills born of the urban jungle. She grew and prospered a lone reedy vine on parched desert plains. Silently thanking the rabid wildebeest for her awakening.

The Big Kid

He grabbed me from behind, by the scruff of my neck, tearing the collar of my fake fur coat. Dude wanted money of which I had none, and to rub breasts I did not yet possess. Inhabiting my scrawny nine-year old form were remnants of chicken wings, hominy grits, and hope. Too young to trade with money, my currency that day, three #2 pencils and a prized gilded protractor.

Placed in District 4's newly created gifted program, I now walked to school alone. Running late this particular morning, I inhaled the crisp November air and decided to take a short cut thru the basketball courts on Park Avenue. Maybe he knew me or had watched my pigtails move, as is the case with his kind for he swooped down and bound me in an instant. I knew nothing of sex or the evils of men; but his breath told the story of ages.

My screams immediate loud pleading...skyscrapers standing in silent vigil as he tossed aside my belongings. Cars whizzed by, smug drivers ignoring my shame. The steel cold sharp against skin, but it would not surrender. Punching blindly I fought for my very soul and for the souls of girls who could not. Clutching boots and coat I ran barefoot and screaming into the oncoming traffic. No one stopped and no one cared.

A little girl's innocence forever on the auction block - where are the tears and loathing?

Ha!

I fucked him cuz he
needed it
and wanted to go
higher.

I did it with my
pity clit
the one without
desire.

The one with no
deliciousness
her flesh devoid
of fire.

The sex that
never ever was
a loveless fuck
of ire.

Fragments of self -pt 1

i lie awake tonight
full of sex
with thug brother X

who did not "mean" to
hurt me

thinking of new love
in white knee socks
and playgrounds
of spent broken
glass