4th Grade

In grade school I'd pace around the room, up and down the equipment and around it, too

My mind raced like a broken roller coaster---i didn't know what i was thinking of and why it appeared to me out of the infinite blue sky above my confused little head

Was it an episode I was trying to play back like a VCR, or was I trying to give it a new ending? One i felt agreed with me better, where heroes were held back by their capes.

Like a windup train, I'd circle the same objects again and again, never stopping, gazing back at my friends engaged in four-square and kickball---Feeling left out, I knew what outcast meant long before i heard 'hey ya!' So I screamed, weeping and wailing like I was I in pain

The blonde bully, Amy, tells me I'm just chasing my friends away, I'm a pathetic, fat baby, a coward

She remembers the time I stole first base back in gym, literally, I stole first base, picked it up and ran away with the rubber mat in my plump arms


She doesn't know the half of my insanity, The Scream come to life, my mouth could have been sculpted to an 'o' shape with volume dials on my face instead of ears

The teacher who loved baking pastries and buying brownies more than teaching children about pilgrims or metrics noticed my sneaking away from class to the reading space in a nearby corner while her lips were still moving---She knew I was crouching on all fours, creeping slowly to the fables and tales of horror

It's not like she cared, though---The special needs girl wasn't in her cookbook, or her teacher's manual, it appeared

the bratty blonde didn't understand, I wanted a normal life, I wanted to sing, with my friends as backup and nothing stopping me from belting out my first single: when I go across the lake

She would never know how I'd smile to myself after learning the spanish numbers, especially the 'teens---15, or quince, which sounded like Quinn-ce in my mind

I flashed back to black and red slippers, red and black jesters toting guns in a totebag she'd carry around

Amy aiming her taunts at me would chase me around, she could have been running with scissors her words were so cutting

I was ms. plump, tubby, mental girl in the eyes of other children, yet I cared as much as my teacher did about me gaining knowledge

Harley stood out for me that year, I screeched out songs during recess that year, I screamed so loudly and shed so many tears---I paced around the bleak blacktop

Meds didn't work on me that year, the more I had to take, the less sleep I got, wandering around my bedroom space

If I had a pencil I'd erase that year out of my life, tearing a hole through my life, taping in a new past

Then again, I listened to my first Eminem song that year, and hated it