I spent my fifth grade year in school in my fourth new district
writing timed multiplication tests while blood fell from my nose
in hot fat drops splattering my papers,
a rusty brown organic counterpoint
to the red ink of my teacher’s note
“Emily- see me after class”
and my stomach dropped faster than the blood
or the bobble-headed Care Bear that my Social Studies teacher
threw out the window during class
because she once mentioned that she hated Care Bears
and so we covered her room with them.
I spent my fifth grade year at home in my parent’s bed
with blankets tacked over the windows and towels stuffed
into the cracks under the doors
while my parents tiptoed through the kitchen
and I dug my chewed off nails into my scalp trying
to claw the rot and smoldering ash out of my head
and flinched at every creaking floor board.
It was an old house.
The mourning doves called sycophantic dirges every dawn
(and noon, and dusk),
and I grinned when the dog chased them off to hide
with the one-eyed tom in the barn.
I tell you these things not to make you feel sorry for me,
but because I am confused how I can feel sorry for me
and yet miss that time so much.
In the end, I am left only with the firm conviction
that timed tests are every child’s bane,
and mourning doves are just country pigeons.