When clocks strike twelve and trainings end
— lurk not, they say, in school at night.
Age-old stories tell of how there’re
things that throng in fluorescent light.

In toilets silence screeches loud,
for when school’s empty, they arise:
Ghosts of pregnant girls lie wailing,
with cleaner-uncle poltergeists.

For now I sit on chilling white,
resounding prayers in my mind;
my heart racing with dire wish
a friend of Casper’s I won’t find —

Then eeeeeeek!
Is that a door creaking?
Perhaps it stemmed from my own mind,
Hinges sing as they fly open!
Thou who entered, oh be my kind!

A thud thud thud as shoes traverse
across the glinting marble floor;
and louder,
louder as they get
much nearer to my sacred door!

THEN SILENCE

or so I wish!

But a loud knock takes my breath away.
The unlatched bolt lies there lazing
HOW’D I FORGET TO LOCK TODAY?

A hand thrusts in so hard and swift,
door’s open ‘fore I can react!
I’m facing now a girl my age,
She bawls at me with little tact —

Eyes bloodshot and tummy bloated,
“YOU DISGUSTING PIG! HOW DARE YE?!”
I dash out of the girls’ toilet
before she tries to castrate me.