rows of two!-three!-four!-boys-bloc-king-the-cor-rid-or will soon be gone and the RHYTH-mic-tick-tock-of-my-leg-BOUN-cing-on-the-floor will be no more it's fresh cadavers wrapped in string it is a joyful gospel hymn mourning the best and worst of youth (those shiny kids who'd first walked in with all the grace and all the poise of hatched arachnids missing limbs)
but what of "her" – you know her name – that overfed, reptilian thing who shed her hair and scratched her skin, cursing the odds at Him upstairs, demanding He re-shape her?
some say she cried herself into extinction – sailed away on a crimson tide – balking at the trauma of being seen (enforced, cursed vulnerability in being known to man).
the rest knew better; they were voyeurs in this fruit-carving tutorial on 'how to grow up':
STEP 1) consider all other alternatives 2) take the scalpel and initiative 3) before adrenaline gives way to doubt, turn the flesh-vessel inside out in a cocoon of your own creation! while organs may rupture and it aches like you've skinned yourself alive (good for her, setting herself free!) you'll look cuter in the class photos and has you-know-who... finally... shifted the weight? 4) breathe through the blood loss and searing pain 5) notice you can breathe again. at this point, does it matter that it aches?
tribute to the worst years of my life so far. may it only get better from here.