Pandora' s box

pandora's box

What to report today?
I am weary of people.
Of the perpetual self-destruct going on around me.
It feels I'm on a battlefield watching my friends fall.
I stand in the middle of grey, helmet in hand, all muscles sore from effort.
I expect people to die.
To overdose.
To get divorced.
To cheat.
To implode within their snail shells and miss the light all around.

As a teenager I needed only my backpack and a bus schedule.
I roamed barefoot in baggy jeans hung low on hips.
I swiveled in and out of social circles with a chain on my belly.
Hurled too fast to be pinned down.
I ripped my heart from every home before roots could take hold.
I ate the heart out of every watermelon and left the rest in the gutter.
I read Beat poets and imagined myself Kerouac's lover...was his lover.

Now I teach art to junior high girls.
One student in particular flaunts her fuck-it in every gesture.
She painted over one painting 5 times.
Used up way too much paint, and pretended not to care.
I have done this.
She eats all the snacks I bring...stuffs them into her pockets.
It is not cute.

"My mom says I have issues.  She says I'm not right in the head."
The girl pops out one bony hip and digs her grubby fist into the treat jar.
I want to cry for her and tell her to get the hell out of my classroom.
It is all too painful.
This shit we do as human beings to try and guard a thing that is meant to be exposed.
The human heart.
It must be fragile.
It must.  I get that.
That's why movies are so good.
Why music is so good.
Why the sun can soothe my whole body.
Why I adore my husband so much I want to eat his breath...still.
Why I can't stop staring at my baby.
Why I can hardly stand to stay in one place.
But Grace asks this of me.  She asks me to stay.  And to love.
Some days I miss my teenage swivel hips...but not really.