Its morning and I ride the bus to school with you. We stare through the graffiti scratched grooves in the window the sun hums hymns over everything but we notice the shadows what is invisible to them
Most days we don't listen teachers preaching system but we don't find that interesting. We nod to their speech but really its the beat we tap with our pencil and rubber swinging on chairs as we try to find balance
There is no need to talk **** in the playground we're schools ahead of them; girls not eating in front of boys frontin' like they don't like girls just irritates us. We could hide in the toilets but we want them to see us cuss them with our book and pen how we be marking paper
Some days we don't go school we call Kevin, he takes us to P's and we watch them. At first they make words make love then they make words hate us they cuss destroy trust punch chest they get vex
Then I will lean forward, skip along the vinyl, jump onto the needle, fly over the speaker riding the bass onto your shoulder. You will strain to hear as l whisper *put your headphones back on
2010 Transformation of Bill Collins 'Portrait of a reader...'