#lsmsa

push out, like wastewater, to purge the black rot and leave pink tissues healthy and clean

you stalked the carpeted high school halls, an earthbound vulture in a badly-fit, off-the-rack

suit jacket and boring ties, seeing me as a cancer thriving among the sweet meat of the student body--

i was a sentinel node pointing out the rot, the tumor growing, even as you stabbed at me with your

administrative scalpel, expulsion, a surgery wholly unsuccessful, as i still walked to pomp

and circumstance

meanwhile, the clean-cut boys who cooked meth smiled and simpered and went to bible study, were ignored by you,

finger running over white letters spelling song as words explode

-- notes --

from the silver spaceship cd player, soft scrape beneath of disc-spin--

laser running over grooves invisible, turning light into

music--

as teenaged eyes turn dim fluorescent into song, breathing

joy into sterile cinder block dorm room

light falls like burnished copper cicada thrum as the violet creeps –jasmine slow, and genuine– across clouds edged and scrolled in goldleaf–sundown over redbrick north louisiana hills

breath of pine and paper mill, scent of lake water and the rosey fronds of autumn cypress breathing through the three inches that the window could open

sultans of swing spinning on the silver cd player (purchased with stamps from packs and packs of my uncle’s menthol cools)

memory paints everything in oil pastel–the white cinderblock room, the emerald carpet over greying tile, the blondewood dorm furniture, our golden futures–

all edges softened by time and the glow of the sun falling into the cool arms of night

Christian boy, did your god manifest inside you when you brought molded plastic and rage down on my face? Was the Prince of Peace guiding your righteous hands?

My goddess looked away, helpless, as the brand of God’s tough love rose crimson across my cheeks.

Tears steamed on kettle-hot flesh, and the words of our alma mater lingered on my bleeding lips.

“Diverse and many, we became united in your noble name.”

As diverse as you and me, as united as your cafeteria tray and my face.

-- S. E. De Haven