Bitter students,

What do you see when you look at me

up here at the front of the room?

Do you see the skin?

Look at my eyes; do you see the

Reflections of the pool I’m in?

I see you aching for freedom, I see you aching for meaning,

For pride, for accomplishment, for dignity,

For a place to thrive.

I know enough to know you don’t get it at school.

I know in your life softness is for fools.

You look at me and you know

That any softness in my heart

Is privilege

Is ignorance

Is inexperience

Because you know I couldn’t stay soft

If I knew what you know.

Let me tell you what I know:

I know the sound of a student’s voice over the phone

Calling from jail

Scared and playing tough

Trying to tell me that

I was the only person who cared enough even to bust him

Before things got ugly.

I know the feeling

Of my helpless left hand

Between the shoulder blades

Of a man barely thirteen

Whose body racked with sobs is

Shaking like his cousin’s hot corpse

Kissed by rounds of nine

Spilling blood like wine

As he watched from the passenger’s seat

Yesterday.

I know the look of a girl turning tricks for kicks maybe a little rock

Across the tracks on Saturday night

Coming to school on Monday

Wearing all the same clothes she had Friday

Except her pants, which are gone.

Now she’s wearing some granny throw

Wrapped around her waist like a sarong

Her make up’s so thick she’s painted out her face

She doesn’t think I can see her under the slick

Of Miss Clairol and Cover Girl lipstick

But I can see her eyes,

And she can’t cover the lie inside

That when her black friends go to jail,

The cops drive her and her tortured white body

Back to her daddy’s house in the hills

Where he beats her.

Then mommy buys her a pony.

I’ve seen a girl, ready to die

Spiraling down into oblivion

Because she’s sick of switching all the “she”s

In her weekend to “he”s

And all it takes is a few seconds of listening

To make her know that I love

Love and I don’t care what the plumbing looks like

And pow!

She’s off like a rocket, gonna be valedictorian,

Gonna be ROTC captain, gonna serve with honor.

I can see those girls,

Halfway between teddy bears and condoms

Sucking lollipops like blow jobs

Still in pigtails

And I can see them

Covering bruises

Dropping out to deliver a child

Sneaking into my room after class

To ask

What are the symptoms of herpes.

I’ve seen a huge fist attached to a

Fifteen year old six and a half feet tall

Cocked at my face

Because I wouldn’t let him back into class

I’ve heard gunshots in the distance

I’ve seen him rip apart a fence and

Club a man with the splintered end.

I’ve seen the little gang banger whisper

I’m Persian because she thinks

I’ll hate her if I know she’s Iraqi.

I’ve been to his house and seen

The glass imbedded in the walls,

The kitchen table in pieces in the corner,

The plaster gouged deep where the knife went

When his father missed slitting his throat.

I saw the scratch on his neck –

It was a near miss –

And I took him home and took care of him until
The court could figure out what to do

Because his mom kept bailing out his dad.

He stole my car and took my money,

Spent it on spliff;

He watched my husband attack me

Through the door hung open

Until I had to kick the boy out.

I gave him time

But he came back stoned loaded high lifted

Jazzed lost

And asked for a few more days to get his stuff out

Until I put it on the driveway,

Never saw him again,

And had to get myself out to save my soul.

I’ve seen her eyes

Flicker alive

Behind a wall of flesh

She feeds when she can’t find safety

-And there is no safety for big girls these days –

But those buried eyes flicker alive

When she realizes

Yesterday’s poet loved a woman

With a navel like a goblet of gold.

I’ve seen her knuckles cut on the teeth of the innocent

Crowing about watching the blood and spit

She hides her fear in violence

She hides her fear in sex

She hides her fear in her shirt

Nobody sees the abyss of her eyes

When they’re staring up and down her dress

If she says she does it all the time and likes it and calls it freedom to spread her body wide

She can hide the memory

    Of huge, rough hands telling her it’s ok.

    Ok but don’t tell.

    Our little secret; you’re my special girl.

I’ve seen the miracle of an “emotionally disturbed teen”

Having a normal day: playing in the sunshine, throwing a ball, scooping shit like it’s a privilege.

The simple softness of the dog

Who listened and loved without question did this;

She knew the boy had burned kittens,

She knew he had a gun,

She could smell it on him

Like cheap cologne.

She didn’t care,

Just softy took one more quiet step

Toward him every day;

It took months

Until he reached to touch her

And her eyes met his

With trust

Something he’d never seen before

And that criminal

That psychotic case

Became just a boy

With a load too heavy for a boy to bear.

That’s where I learned softness.

I earned this softness

I’ve seen the system capture and kill kids

Like my cat kills birds

Toying with their hope

And talent

Their luck

While they flutter, screaming

Fighting

Against a power too big to fight

Their delicate structures collapse under

The weight of its jaws

They get high

They do crimes

They ask what does this have to do with me

They fight back

And after all I am the system.

You don’t know I fight it too

You don’t know what it costs

To see a child

Woman of no experience

Young man

Carve “PAIN” in four inch letters in his belly skin

Slide backwards into an abyss of insanity until they literally haul him away to the “home” for “treatment”

Which means more of the drugs

Drugs she used to OD in the school bathroom

Drugs he used to trade for X

I know where the drugs go

I know where the blood flows

I know who buys, who sells,

Who thinks they can quit any time they want

I see it

I see you

And I wonder if you can see me

I wonder if you know that I fought hard

To keep this softness

That it takes

Guts and hope

And faith in humanity

In the resilience and power of a people

Young people

You

To stay soft

To feel and teach and keep trying

In a hard, hard, world

I know you know how that feels

But I don’t know

If you can see

I feel it too

I don’t know if you’re going to

Learn to be soft

Or if you’re going to keep hiding in the

Heat of hate and hurt

And go down hard

To the bottom of your life

And when you do,

Will you come back up

Or will you stay silent still stiffening

Cold in the grave of your life.

Whatever you decide,

I’ll witness.

I believe there is hope in you.

Your disasters are yours.

Your miracles are yours.

Your lives are yours.

It takes

Guts and hope

And faith in humanity

In the resilience and power of a people

Young people

Yourself

To stay soft

To feel and teach and keep trying

In a hard, hard, world.