Failed somatic reclamation

 Some where back in southern Germany.
Where summer sunset took over an hour.
Fucking in an abandoned hospital.
Next to a race track.
Step sons and permanence.

Desperate passions,
quite like huge government projects.
They will tax you.
And you'll never feel like you got to the bottom of it.
Sunsets and fucking are supposed to feel romantic.

But it all felt like a routine checkup.
The woman was enigmatic, euphoric even.
But abandoned hospitals don't bode well for allure.
And going straight for the home run,
felt like a cheap "all you can eat" with a time limit.

The race track near the hospital also empty.
No speeding motors tearing it up on the track.
The thought accelerated me so I could get it done with.
When it was done we took the Johnny gowns off.
Put our regular clothes back on, nothing was better, 

We were still two hurt people inside an abandoned hospital, next to an empty race track.

Walking past my past-self

 I walked past myself on the way to the dairy.
pick up somethings because night would be quick.
Cold afternoons breeze sharp and uncomfortable.
The elm on the corner yellow but it wasn't autumn.

I sought signs in my surroundings.
Like I had been here before.
This life I had absorbed into.
This body I was looking out of.

What I was supposed to be.
What I was supposed to do.
I walked past all that too.
Left it on the footpath.

Walked in the bell chimed.
Went straight to each item without thinking.
The man behind the counter was polite.
The exchange was short almost pleasant.

Out I went looking down at the ground outside the dairy.
The concrete so well stepped on, smoothed over even.
I walked past myself leaning against the wall of the shop.
Smoking a cigarette and pretending not to care, pretending...

Bullies and how they work.

 There's literally no grimmer punishment than getting humiliated by your peers when you are young at school.
Notice how adults as mediocre as we are, quickly forget how terribly dreadful it was to fall into the trap of, or become by proxy the butt of someone's joke, a joke that will involve the participation of the whole class or even the whole year.

And how ridiculous the concept of safe is in schools, when the irony is there is nothing safe. It is a place of social danger. Bullying exists at the same level as always, it was just upgraded.

It has become more of a challenge. And also much more rewarding. Instead of leveraging the sensitive prejudices the bully find himself navigating and engineering situations to make his target seem like the tyrant. And as children naive many get sucked into a situation that paints them the bigot.

The bully continues unaffected. And the teacher pretends that level of manipulation does not exist.
The shame and agony of becoming a pariah when your greatest hope was to belong is worse than losing your job as an adult. Possibly worse than a break up.

Because they haven't built the emotional fortitude to deal with being blindsided on such a level.

Never underestimate a bully.

Shaded vestige

 Merging with grey,
Loves only night.

Daggers drag against hardened cement.

Enemy of day,
blemish upon white.

Teeth that should be crushed are sharpened.

Contrarian of light,
Ingredient of the afraid.

Wings that can be read, their shapes absorbed into tarmac

Concealed from sight,
The human soul it's prey

Almost a whisper

 Calmly I touch you on the shoulder
Neck skin folds 
Head sedately moves round
Lips part briefly

Words spill
As eyes glue
Anticipation meets action
You breathe a word

Calmly I listen to your wonder
Fondness folds
Curiosity gingerly positions herself
The mind wanders

Those who can't....

 
The thing about being a teacher reflects what my father told me a million times.
Those who can, do, those who can't teach.
But those who learn are incredible, their evolution is divine.
And although I struggle with feelings of being no one or nothing,
I see value in what they take.
I have become a gardener of ideas.
I have recycled and pieced together many crazy ideas.
My students have taught me more than I could have ever learned by myself.
I see my biases and my disgusting laziness of thought.
Most of them are smarter than me.
Some of them appear godlike. And If i wasn't born with the right language in my mouth.

I might just have become the nothing that I was taught I was. In the place I was raised.
A negative on society.
An addict.
A tax.
A vandal.

As I couldn't fit in, isn't it justified I became a teacher.

Ring leader

 Lambert creek
venemous caterpillar
Oak that trembles in winter
Unwilling to shed leaves
Feeding the prefrost pests

Cursing the land
as the boy in the sandpit
Tightens his jacket in gale
Positions his soldier figurines

Citizen salt
Ash and so hygienically clean
Not a leaf brown or rusted
Litters the street

Sitting on the Thonet
Contemplating 
scribbling in black book
Pondering excrutiating death

Rallying the restless
Harnessing their inadequacies
Into a tangible hate refined arcane
rehearsing for the scourge