a 'modern' school building
with 'modern' ideas
(and 95% of the pregnant
and the drop-outs and the
suicidal and the desperate
pushed under the
carpet instead of
given help)

a balanced curriculum
everything your child
needs
(except love and affection
and life skills and how
to treat other people
without behaving like
a *******)

there's dozens of school clubs
the gospel choir's won
awards
(though you'll hear more of a
holy chorus of '*****' from the lips of the
******* goddamners)

and our school reputation is
propped up on results
(but exams mean nothing
because when you're dead
who's going to care how
much ink you scrawled in
just the right patterns on
your blank sheet of paper?)

all students are valued
equally, of course
(but definitely not by
the other students because
who wants to see that art
freak's drawings on Instagram
when he didn't even get invited
to that last big
party?)

all boys and girls are given
equal opportunity
(except when a bench needs
lifting, or they're transgender)

and our school uniform dress
code applies to everyone
(but if you're a guy and your
forearms are distracting someone
don't worry, you won't be asked
to cover them up)

all bullying is dealt with
swiftly and without prejudice
(unless the kid being bullied is
black or muslim because then
for some reason it's a whole
different story)

and all subjects here are treated
with equal merit and available
to everyone
(but if you're taking woodwork
then you're thick, or drama then you're
queer)

speaking of equality, the school's an
lgbt+ safe zone
(but don't even think about
being openly into the same ***
or someone's going to smash
your face in)

because we're a 'modern' school
with 'modern' ideas
(but if someone tries to tell you otherwise
then they're telling the
truth
and it's worth being friends with
them)

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.