My head aches.

My heart aches.

I want one thing.

Just one, and it, of course, has to be laced with stigma.

And I can't find anyone else like you, in a more innocuous place.

No one else that meets my conditions.

Professing for one period

of five months.

Then you won't be my _ _ _ _ _ _ _ anymore.

And yet still, with an easy game of hangman out of the way.

There is still the gap,

16.

I don't care, I couldn't care less.

I just want you, and it is legal now.

And I'm not in it for a grade, and I'm not in it for any benefit other than my heart's.

I don't want it any other way.

At that age, you are unlike you will be or ever have been, at any point in time.

Crisped.

This is why I wish I could have met you under different circumstances.

That will be the first question, the first denial, the first wall.

Unless you are completely insane, no, you've worked too hard to get to where you are.

I don't want to take that from you, but please, hear me out.

Tall, thin, white, handsome…

hairline receding.

Yet still, bright, alive, youthful.

That smile of yours stole my heart, the way you laugh as you do your job.

My face hurts from being so happy.

1 hour and 30 minutes, two days a week is not long enough.

If you'll have me.

If there is no one else.

I want to be in your lap, my lips on yours, my hands soft on your face and in your hair.

I want to show you my raw passion, my age fools you.

My only fantasy, I don't love you, but perhaps I could.

And if you don't want me to, I won't.

But for one night, please.

Rejection is one thing.

But rejection solely because the stigma surrounding your position will leave me looking like an idiot.

You would not have even thought of me, of us.

Fear will grip you before anything else.

And the pain of that is worse than the pain of a thousand rejections.

And so, I wonder whether or not to ever tell you, to ask you.

If I will even be given a fair chance if I wait until the last day?

If not you, I fear I will never have my fantasy with anyone.

And my heart will ache until my time is up.

And I get around your age, my friend.

PATERNAL LOVE FOR ELDEST DAUGHTER
(written about a cloven hoof gallops ago - when thee eldest exceptional progeny chomping at the bit to break free and clear from this papa and the missus re - biological mother).

Heartstrings plucked tender swansong
upon hearing the plaintive
wail of me eldest lass
whose whispery voice barely audible

yet these keen practiced ears of father
detected tortured despair
her pounding headache
which wee hour of this morning

October third found me mentally fumbling
with helpless at her severe physical discomfort
and found my own ability to slip into deep sleep
compromised on behalf of this darling dame

who (ever since her debut – fifteen years ago
quickly sped fast forward to six mo' orbitz
round the sun - this then december twenty second ~2012)
found predilection to be goaded into
surrendering thyself (and/or limited finances)

to fulfill wishes by hook or crook
lest self disappointment manifest itself
once she ventures out into the blue beyond
i.e. the world wide web extant upon this terra firmae
leaving me with mere wisps of memories to cherish.

In this society
of souls from the millennium
Invigorated by validation
Drugged only skin-deep
With toxic actions and words
And prices ruling like
A silver-spoon-fed princess
The value of an individual
Plunges deep into the depths
Of the shallowest mirror-like pools

I can only sigh
As I sit in this new class
Alongside new faces
And the absence of the professor
I think of refunding my expensive tuition fee
When I pay my utmost attention
To everything around me

And as the teacher said goodbye to her graduating class
filled with children she taught so much to,
she wondered where they would go,
and she wondered who they would be...

Would so-and-so make it through high school?
Would what's-her-name keep dancing?
Would that-one-boy ever stop talking and begin to listen to others?
Had she done enough to help them all?

It was no longer her responsibility;
she had set them free.

After a nostalgic sit, she walked home to a simple house,
in a simple town. Her husband waited
at the dinner table, silently admiring her curls,
as she sat down, ready to take in food and new information.

When she was at home, she was no longer the teacher,
but the student. Her children filled her soul
with things she never knew or imagined.
Her husband smiled and reminded her
that no one in this world is perfect,
but in his eyes, she was,
and that was all that need matter to her.

Too familiar with the unhealthy coping mechanism of numbing emptiness with mindlessness
Your hands are too tired of the math review you’re desperately trying to finish.
You find yourself
Tapping through Snapchat stories, barely paying attention to
The group selfies, of bright, well-lit rooms decked with Christmas decorations
Of red ribbons and green pine and mistletoe
Of the white glints of friends’ toothy smiles
Sometimes the snaps would be videos
With deafening, muffled sounds of cheers, people’s faces recognizable
Even when turned away, laughing, looking at the star, the subject of the snap
All the cameras point to her face as she dances
It’s a party, and the late realization makes you feel dumb
I wasn’t invited. But why would I be?
I’m the asocial one, the one who always has to politely decline with
“Sorry, I have to do homework, have to do this, have to do that”
They’re IB kids. You’re in AP. What’s your excuse?
You think as you sit in front of your fluorescent LED screen
The phone’s luminosity searing through your eyes
But you can’t tear them away from the festive scene playing in front of you.
They’re having fun. It’s nighttime, 11:04, 5 seconds in, but
The environment in your house versus theirs
Seem 12 hours apart, night and day,
You squint, because wow, everyone is there. The close ones, the acquaintances,
That one guy you had to sit next to once in homeroom.
It’s almost Christmas.
You glance around your room.
No cat in sight, mother upstairs, conked out.
Your phone isn’t even alive. The snap has long been over. No vibrations of incoming texts.
You sigh.
Only a semester left.
And your fingers wearily
Pick up the pencil
And you resume
Alone.

Kathy Ann cut the hair of Mr. Diatribe,
recently deceased,
and glued his soft golden locks
to her pink phone case.
Fuzzy, calming, cathartic.

The scholars took this as evidence that she truly loved him
for all the favoritism
for all the joking
for all the flirting
for all the gentle touches
and for all the extra credit he offered her.

She raised her phone to the sky and declared
“This is my trauma on display,
for all the world to see.
It changed my life forever.
He will never part with me.”

Sophia asked her
“Wouldn’t you rather move on
and build a better society?
Imagine a school with free lunches,
no homework, no grades, bully-free.
Co-operation and learning only.”

“I’m still ****** up about it,” said Kathy Ann.
“It sounds good but I don’t believe.”

“That’s okay. I love you.”

“Some day, I will too. Thank you.”

The way you hug me
The way you talk with me without voice
The way you need me

Is enough to show me that I'm still needed
Soundless love that motivates me to live
Thank you, my dear student

If it wasn't for you,
I would feel so worthless
Thank you for keeping me alive.

I read about death and violence

I proof read,
and top up
and eject
and print
and scan
and hand in
and sometimes I get full marks.

Mark.
Marks
Marks on the body.
Mark my words.
(Mark my work.)
Karl ******* Marx
The communist who launched a thousand memes.

My oh my.

//

The necropolitical is like a funnel
a filter,
a sieve.
Like baking,
only you didn't forget to put the oven on
and people are inside the oven and so are you.

It's not like with the toaster
when ur mum tells u to scrap the black crumbs into the drain.

It's not like you can unburn the burnt.
Oh and the skin grafts?
There's a waiting list for that.
The waiting list?
There's a form for you to get on that.
The forms?
You need to print them out.
The printer?
OUT OF ORDER.
Buy your own.
OUT OF STOCK.
Your bank balance?
FUNDS INSUFFICIENT.
Your bank?
Sorry you have reached us out of outside of our operating hours.

Outside
Outside of our
Outside of our operating
of our operating hours
operating hours
and hours
and hours
and hours
Thanks for holding! A representative will be with you shortly...

[Dave Dobbyn music continues playing through the phone]