Homework Tray
A small boy in my primary school class Thrust a semi melted chocolate bar with a red sash Into my homework tray. I can still feel the teachers hand on my shoulder urging- Please, be gentle Just take it. Just take it anyway. 8 years old and hell bent on snails and flying dreams I am horrified at this uninvited altitude. The class stare and point Sharpening their tongues for the acronym chime taunts. I see the pale boy shuffle and I quietly squeak a thank you. The first of many gratitude’s I’ll be asked to provide For things I didn’t ask for. A year later I’m walking home from school A song from assembly about autumn leaves Still sings sweetness as I stroll. I know I want to go as Sporty Spice to the school disco and I am lost in the world of high kicks, high ponytails, girl gangs, girl power, glitter bodyspray and bomber jackets. And he’s there. Following behind with two other soft limbed and smiling schoolboys. Classmates. But there’s this fissure running through the playground down the canteen to the school gates. Invaded and alien outside the corner shop, I skirt the alleyway and head for higher ground. No longer at liberty to linger and taste the first traces of tangible autonomy, I slam the front door behind me- A sudden safe haven from the dangers of enjoying the world alone and nowhere to be. And this time, his dad is calling my house Asking please, will I go round for tea. The summer is all Polly pockets, hamsters and camping. I’m tape recording songs from the radio that make me feel free. Our parents plead with me to just be nice, they tell me to ‘try’. We agree its not kind to leave someone longing or lonely and I begrudgingly put down my camera and stop taking pictures of the sky. I endure his anecdotes and admiration. Honey poured into the places where our laughter should be. But it’s just a language I don’t understand yet A world I cannot see. The same summer I learnt to dislocate from the territory of my own body I saw a cartoon about a teenage mermaid who’d trade her world for his, to be a silent castaway. The singing crab tells the prince- ‘She doesn’t need to say a word, just kiss her, kiss her anyway’.
Flight of the dragonfly 