School Days

Apples on a stick. 
Make me sick. 
You learn the rhythm, this way. 
That way. 

You and your friends on the jungle gym. 
Penny Drop, Dead Man’s Drop. 
Learn to hurtle your body 
into empty space without a thought. 
Your first sweet taste of death. 

You and your friends in a burnt-out house. 
Its scorched carpet, shattered chandelier. 
Can you keep a secret, they ask, teeth chattering. 
Your pockets lined with broken glass. 

That's how he did it, that's how he did it, 
he slammed her through the screen door. 
You'll never know until you're much older that 
it was just an accident. 
All that red translucence. 

In the bathroom, the mirror, its filthy words. 
Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. 
Her pale, furious visage. 
The newness of someone's tongue 
thrust down your throat. 

Learn to twist your body in the swing. 
Higher. Higher. 
Till you can't breathe. 
Till you learn not to speak of emptiness. 

Because the boy three houses down 
wants to lick you in a place you've never been to. 
Your stepfather's breath smells of beer 
and something far more terrifying. 
Your mother deems your worth 
equal to that of the antique china, 
an heirloom of legacy 
best relegated to the closet, 
too awkward and outmoded to display. 

Higher. Higher. 
Take one sip, then another. 
Higher. Higher. 
Learn to take one finger then another. 

At night, wish you may, wish you might 
while ghosts slide like tongues across your walls. 

Their voices like fingers in your skull. 
Their promises, sweet as candy, 
tangling in the wind.