Tag: school

Within Close Range: The Pressure of Writing

She moves up and down the rows of desks 

filled with tiny, crouched figures 

hovering over lined paper 

and clutching #2 pencils. 

Filling the aisle with her middle-age width 

and Avon perfume, 

I feel the warmth of her body and breath 

as she leans over me 

and sighs.

We’ve been here before.

I’m just not getting this pencil-holding thing.

I thought I was doing it right. 

The letters on my paper look pretty much like everyone’s. 

Pretty much.

But every time she stops at my desk, 

she firmly cups her hand over mine and squeezes  

hard

until she forces my tiny, anxious fingers 

to curl around the long, yellow pencil 

with the well-worn, pink eraser.

“A firm grasp is the key to proper penmanship, my dear,” she says, 

trying to sound patient 

about my substandard pencil etiquette.

Not wanting to disappoint her

again

I clench that pencil 

as if my very breathing depends upon it, 

until my fingers cramp from it, 

and the lead of the pencil 

presses so hard against the paper 

that the letters bulge through the opposite side.

When she asks us to turn our papers over 

and sit quietly until everyone finishes, 

I close my eyes 

and feel each raised letter with my fingertips. 

Wondering whether any one else 

has to press that hard 

work that hard 

to squeeze out the letters 

and words, 

and sentences, 

so very anxious to burst forth.

Within Close Range: Bullies

Because our home’s so far away, 

I’m the first picked up by the bus each day

and the very first stop after school –

which makes every student on our route  

sit forty minutes more each afternoon

and me, an unwelcome sight.

Full of hormones and hate, 

those in last few rows of the long, yellow bus 

moan and groan 

as soon as I climb on,

making me nervously skitter to the nearest seat

where I crouch 

and hide 

and wait.

The hardcore insults come later

and louder

cloaked in the anonymity of the rumbling and motion 

of our rolling prison.

Deaf to what he hears, 

the bus driver just stares ahead

and goes where he’s told. 

United by the same neighborhood, 

in the opposite direction,

they snarl and nip at the back of my neck –

piercing my thin skin. 

It’s us versus them, 

in every nasty word. 

But the “them” they think I am 

is absolutely absurd.

When their rabid, backseat words 

have more than their usual bite, 

I step from the bus 

and race to the woods, 

searching for a way to shake the hurt 

in the thick, dim patches of unpeopled forest. 

I disappear among the ember-colored leaves 

which cap the many trees

before the heavy freeze 

steals the color from the land.

And there, I simply am.

Where I step to the sound of my breathing,

the movement of the clouds, 

and to the busy hush of forest life about, 

reminding me to go about my own;

and to heal my wounds

with the comforts of home.

Within Close Range: Speech Class

Walking hand in hand through the woods to Sherwood Elementary – just Mom and me – I stay in the playground, hanging by my knees against the cool, metal monkey bars; looking upside down at the grey, September sky, wondering what I’ve done to make Mrs. Paschua, my first grade teacher, want a meeting.

On our way home, Mom explains that they talked about the way I speak and why I might have troubles with certain sounds. Mrs. P. thought Mom might be the reason – perhaps a foreigner (with that foreign-sounding name).

I giggle when Mom tells me how surprised my teacher was to discover that Mom – that we – are as exotic as apple pie. 

But I love the thought of someone thinking I’m different. It makes me feel special.

Sherwood Elementary thinks I’m special too. Enough to take me out of class each week to send me to speech therapy, where they work the entire year to make me sound just like everyone else.

But I know, I’ll never sound like anyone else.