you are not the worst
i am not the best
is this love or hate
or a need to frustrate?
i wish that i could explicate
our desire to communicate
you know i love this place
and would like to leave with grace
but i cannot swallow lies
two-faced talk i despise
so please put it to me straight
is this love or is this hate?
email daughter’s teacher
who doesn’t know how to read
pick up nuts
because i’m going crazy
learn Castilian Spanish
so i can speak to roommates
intervene in group work
for groups who won’t work
teach daughter to read
because schools don’t work
sit in meetings that don’t apply to me
so i can’t do my work
ride my bike to work
so i can see the moonset/sunrise
try to remember
that i cannot
make a list
that will quite
change the way the world works
i don’t want to be here.
i’m good at this.
i’ve read enough
to share stories and articles
with my co-teachers,
have taught enough
to take over their lessons on the fly,
remember her words enough
to stand at the front and teach
while simultaneously seeing students
for who they really are,
can move through classrooms
and schedules with
hauntingly smooth ease,
can grade a stack of 150
short constructed responses
before the state test is over
and still take the time
to cry a little when i see
how poor a student’s score will be
but i cannot
i cannot
take the tears out of my four-year-old’s eyes
after the rushed-morning goodbye,
the words i cannot take back,
the days
the months
the years
i cannot take back,
the me
(the mommy me)
who i fear will never be as good
as the me
who walks down these hallways.
what have i missed
with the words that won’t end,
what smile or giggle
did my daughters try to send?
how can i allow
your endless conversation
to suck up my night
with this awkward situation?
if he would do his work
and you would let it go
then perhaps we wouldn’t have to
fill our worry-carts with woe.
but no one here seems to care
that waiting is not enough
that sloth and slacking are rewarded
–hard work a dire rebuff.
what have i missed
with the words that never end
that haunt my insomnia
with a world i cannot mend?
as much as i hear what you say
i will never understand why.
how in any right mind
could five rooms full of
talking-back teenagers
ever compare
to the jubilant joy
of young children
dashing through the snow?
their voices carry
like songbirds emerged in winter,
shutting out all the
whipping wind’s hollowness.
yet,
you would rather be here,
trapped in our windowless dungeon,
feeding them the lines
you’ve spouted so many times?
i’ll take my two weeks
and carry them in my mind
on my forever vacation.
for now,
i will draw a zipper across my lips
and, for once, be polite.
after all,
this year cannot carry on,
and summer’s sun,
giggling girls,
and road trips
beckon my dreams
from your harsh reality.
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