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To
My Students
by Louise Loots Thornton
The sound of torn pages rips the
air,
words crushed into garbage.
"Relax!" I tell you. "Breathe .... "
You can not.
"You're no good!
Your writing stinks!"
you accuse yourself. "And
it always will!"
You fear I will note every misplaced
comma, spelling error,
telling myself this is my job, and when I compulsively do so,
you hate your writing even more, hate yourself,
though English is your second or third language,
you take care of your siblings, your parents
work two jobs each, you must miss class
because your abuleita has to go to the hospital,
and you are the only one who can translate
the ache in her chest, her heart.
Or you come to class though you suffer
from lupus, cerebral palsy, cancer of the stomach, breast,
late assignments hang over you heavy as lead,
depression makes you want to kill yourself,
claustrophobia threatens,
visions haunt you,
and everywhere you look,
dead cats litter the floor.
Or you were molested by your uncle,
got mixed up with a gang, raped, shot,
scars adorn your body, war wounds,
you love someone addicted to alcohol, crack,
who beats you for no reason, nothing.
Wounds, shaggy beasts slumping in
and out of my heart, are as familiar as breath,
yet each time you trust me with your sorrow
I am stunned anew:
how when you were eight your little brother
borrowed your big boy's bike, rode away.
You waited for him to come back forever,
and then screaming sirens, your bike crumpled,
nothing left of your brother alive.
"It was my fault," you still tell yourself.
"I should never have let him go."
Or you found yourself pregnant at 14,
15,
you could not tell your mother, your boyfriend
walked away, you drove to the clinic alone,
or you kept your baby, go to school,
work, come to class exhausted
or not at all, your baby ill with a cold,
chicken pox, some strange-sounding thing,
you just want to sleep for a week.
Or you struggle with a wheelchair in
the men's room
so small you have to leave the door open, strangers stare,
girls pat you on the head, when what you really want
is a woman to kiss you full on the mouth, a lover.
Or you smoosh paint on your helpless
hands,
smear purple and yellow swirls on a white page,
a long, flowing dress,
you dancing with perfect legs.
You are rare flowers
sprouting up from the classroom floor as if it were
a desert after winter storms,
as if you were not terrified of being trampled
and no one noticing.
When you hand in writings
permeated with pain so deep it seems blood
must flood the pages,
the masks "teacher" and "student" fall away,
and it is simply you and I,
love clean as bleached bone. |
