Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
this is who I am. This is my story.
It is only coincidence that I sing it
to you,
but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning
amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets
I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was
me. My unconsciousness begging me
for nourishment, silently loudly attacking
my awareness with questions: it asked why
I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
is this, too, why your body vibrates
when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too
have recognized feeling as thought? That that
faculty of wonder you hush about as if a
***** secret of forgotten childhood memory
is something that is as real as
the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch,
but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing
thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words
creaking like old wood in a library filled
with students who read so much ******* to get into
college but never venture forth for such skin
in the skin of those unconscious voices in the
shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe.
The ideas wriggle in your veins like
a worm. They block your blood yet move
your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness
is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you,
pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek.
                                                So I suspect of myself.

I do not understand how else I could have been born
without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see
why else.
                I cannot.
                                 You cannot.

There is light over there in that darkness.
               A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver
has shocked you into your paleness. Into my
blackness. It is the same difference. A different
same.
            
Line break:

A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes.
My brownness ***** me into journeys with
tunnels so deep that we call them pupils.
In the distance that I gaze into I find
myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom
it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not
willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching:
this is the soul you said does not exist.
              
             It is not there. It is.

In Indiana.

Where's that? asks my blood.

In Indiana.

Over there? my finger points out the window.

No. It is.

It is. Not.

Suddenly I smell something and it is myself.
It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin.
I ask you where it is.
Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself.
It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black.
You ask me where I think it is.

What the **** do we know?

The classroom is cold.
Dead and old.
The classroom is silent.
Dead and quiet.
The classroom is empty.
Dead and alone.
Yet this classroom is so similar to my home.
Old... Quiet... And empty...
Yes the definition of dead.

I sat in the back of the classroom,
staring at him flirting with the new girl,
Shameless, Absolutely Shameless.

I understood how she felt,
Utterly infatuated by this boy,
Naïve, Helplessly Naïve.

She didn’t know what he did to me,
The way he took advantage of me in the park,
Oblivious, Incredibly Oblivious.

He stood there smirking, popping his gum,
Waiting to use her for his own pleasure,
Sadistic *******.

I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t even help her,
When I tried to help myself I was laughed at,
Whispers in the hallway, ***** looks, suspension.

Please don’t hurt her the way you did me,
Please.

Looking around the room I notice many things
The way people move their body without realising it
How the clock's ticks are slightly off time
How the ones that are shown as smart work the hardest because things do not come to them as easy as it does to the others.
The ones who just don't want to be there and the ones who use school as their escape
The writing on the desks that is not neat but nor is it messy
The stains on the walls from feet, heads and hands.
How one fan spins slightly slower then the others
And then there's me,
The girl up the back corner with earphones in, writing non stop to escape the world and hide.
I'm the one no one notices, even though I notice you
Even without looking for it, I notice all that people just skim over or try to hide.
I notice everything but all I want is to be noticed