suicide notes from second period
middle schoolers are so astonishingly self-sufficient. they don't know how to be people, but they're letting go of being kids. mental illness, i think, is a middle school type of mindset. everything is so unimaginably big.
it's trauma. it's fawn-freeze. it keeps you there, un-learn-ed. big feelings. big gaping. big mucusy hole in your chest.
and i have asserted, for several months, that i will not base my worth on the interest of the kids. i won't turn around and call out sick if the kids don't really like me, today. if the kids don't need me. if the kids tell me to go sit in the corner and watch a movie instead of engaging with them.
what a wonderful world, where that's even an option! where i get paid to do nothing, six-seven hours a day. one hundred and eighty instructional seconds and minutes - a straight line, plummeting, toward degree's finish.
but it sounds like everything's ending, here. it sounds like algebra is a holding pattern where infinite series stunt forever. it sounds like an open-ended essay response is being chopped up into several single-sentence sections.
the kids are alright. the kids are fine. the kids are covered in keychains and chapstick. the kids are telling each other to chill, in the frontline roulette of toasty classrooms.
it's a familiar rhythm, but it doesn't beat. it doesn't beat sitting at home, to sleep. and it pales in comparison to what real teachers do. it's a frail pantomime. it's not me, it's you.
no funny business. no disrespect. too blocked in the moment to understand that we're just not there yet.
but middle schoolers have another trick coming. middle schoolers have a much bigger building to swarm.
twenty minutes. ten o'clock. mechanical pencil. magnet for lock.
you function. you function. no calculator pocket protector conjunction - you function, you function, you function.
a body for a purpose. a foot without a sock.
sit on your sneaker. pins and needles.
ten minutes. two o'clock.
at the end of the day, the day is over. the day's never coming back again.
the day won't remember the frost of the morning. the night will it swallow, no marking firmer than pen.
pale post-it notes; crumpled, thrown. these are the seeds of your education. simple, solid manestification. someday you'll reap what you've sown.
this is my thesis, from the sub you'll never see again. the flash in the pan femboy, some algebraites have said.
(and speak clearly, would you - mind the full stop?)
my claim: that everything is over.
my evidence: look at it, it's dead.
my support: the wind's hanging onto me.
my conclusion: i'll hang my head.
i didn't notice, when i was changing. i didn't notice what was to come. i didn't expect to forget how to feed my body. i function on compunction. i'm sore parts than sum.
and i talk. i drive a wedge. i save my silence, without a hedge.
i tell you all my secrets, just when i'm ready to read them true. i see myself just as you see me. messy hair. dirty shoes.
lots of pins, prideful pins. stacks of bracelets, gay band kids.
i'm afraid of going home. i never wanted to get here. in fact, i'm afraid of defining a home. it's a open circle at zero fear.
i'm piecewise. i'm conjunctive. i'm unexplained. i'm extra work. i can't even be a nice-to-have. i run apart from coffee. i don't perk.
but the difference between me and a middle schooler is the asset of my independence. i'm the single-cellular organism that survives without community. i've got all my own fly organelles.
i suspect that they don't work, however. the vacuole doesn't truly suck. the space around is clogging up with waste prod and with muck.
when you delete one cell of a middle school, the institution continues on. when you delete an adult from the unemployment pool, there's a hole where once was none.
there are things that i remember that didn't happen to anyone.
there are things that i remember.
middle school, soon december.
soft-curled hair. crunching leaves.
bitter thoughts in fingers tender.
no self-harm upon my sleeves.
don't you think that's funny? don't you think that's weird?
(middle schoolers are funny. middle schoolers are weird.)
always looking for these things that no one wants, no one needs.
meeting needs, not greeting graces; serving rampant juvie greed.
there were no notes. no notes! good kids.
no signs, no sigils. no counts, no bids.
and still there aren't, but shouldn't there be?
shouldn't someone be trying to intervent me?