“Cold…dark, January no doubt. Crystallized gasps hold in the air, indiscriminately juggling between transparency, and opacity. Inhale and cringe as the stifling breeze moves deep, penetrating bone. Shell shocked in a state of disarray, wheezing, and coughing, as the cruel chill proves too much. Hold fast, buckling against bus stops, feeding off the warmth from sewers as they cough up hot, rancid steam. Bathing in the fumes, collecting sweat. Step out from sanctuary to discover that bitter wind that eastern wind, which carries with it a victimizing frost, designed to paralyze movements, to stagnate the course towards salvation. Stumble…fall to the blank canvas bellow, imprint on it the vague outline of the carcass, then move on, holding high, beyond that cold, dark, January.”

Blankness, complete and utter blankness, no smile, no course stare, just blankness, complete and utter blankness.

“Does anyone have any questions or comments? No? All right, you may take a seat Mr. Ryier.”

Is it mockery? Am I the victim of some vast highbrow jest? Is this a period of intentional silence, one designed to brew up this self-doubt roaming about my mind on a destructive and wholly unnecessary cycle?”

“Next up…we have, Mrs. Kennison, reading another poem, I believe. Is that correct?”

“Yes Mrs. Fiordine, It’s called Grasshoppers.”

“Wonderful title, but would you please head to the front of the class to start. Mr. Ryier, did your…piece, have a title?”

“Yes ma’am, ‘Incendiary Delusions On The Effect Of A Cold Temperament’.”

“A bit wordy. We’ll go with cold, dark January. Pay attention now though, Mrs. Kennison is about to begin.”

This woman, this mentor, whose name I can, but won’t recall, I loathe her, and the ability she fosters not just in herself, but others. That thing that has her speak falsehoods with a smile, and to act pleased when riddled with agonizing pain. A monstrous creation she is, and just as Dr. Frankenstein, she yearns for the day when she can cast down her aspersions onto a vacant shell before here, breeding her cruelty into the hollow mind, knowing one day it will come forth, a wholly more monstrous creation, destined to march along a dotted path, until coming across their own pupil, or kin.

“Grasshoppers…they hop…hop right along, in and out of my life, just like David. David, that man I loved, that fleeting hopeless soul, that 28 to my 16, that hold me down, take my pristine, that tie me up, finger licked clean. Where, why, how could you be born with wings, why could I not tether you, or lock you in a cage? David, oh David, my fleeting grasshopper.”

Them, they show excitement, applause, ragging applause. Me, I’m stuck debating the poetic merits of statutory ****, and the indignant need for teenage girls and boys to listlessly portray their life and love as some haphazard, poorly assembled recreation of a renaissance era romance. True love is dead; it died when you let a 28-year-old finger your *******.

“What a stupendous piece Mrs. Kennison! Evokes such images in the mind. Provoking me towards an entangled and banned place of thought. Truly stupendous.”

I want to hit a woman for the first time in my life. Should I? No doubt I shouldn’t. Still, temptation has a way of overwhelming logic. Clenched fist…white knuckles, second thought, dropped hand.

“Best of the day, no doubt Mrs. Kennison. Clear you knew what you were doing. Are there any questions, comments? Yes, Mr. Unner?”

“I believe the piece had a lot of merit. It was clear that this poem, in particular, had a sense of clarity…I guess I’m trying to say I liked it. I liked it because it seemed you knew at least where it was going, and what it was going to be.”

Try harder perhaps, she’s be bound to fall right into your lap, light up with a playful squeeze, bow down, and suckle from her knees. Delusions of enlightenment at the realization of a hardened ****, stuttered compliments of a flirtatious nature, elevating a worthless stock. Holding a vigil to a fictional ****** locked in-between the realms of fantasy and ****, negligent minded to the forthcoming, inevitable scorn.

“I don’t agree, to me, the piece seemed as though Beatrice was trying to perpetuate the delusion men have of being able to break a naïve, young girl’s heart.”

“Superb point Mr. Arden, though it isn’t up to the artist to define the message, that responsibility lays with the reader.”

The girl, Kennison, this newly appointed poetic iconoclast, she breaks her proud stare with the teacher, and glances over at Mr. Arden, Ralph, with a doting look. Mr. Unner, Charlie, not happy with this, not one bit. His heart was broken; he had fallen in and out of love in less than 30 seconds.

“Another comment from Mr. Unner, what is it you have to say?”

“I retract my earlier statement, it was foolish. I hadn’t gone deeper than surface level. The poem is nothing, it’s a forgery mimicking the talents of someone gifted, someone capable of writing something of worth. What we have here is a case of blonde hair, crooked teeth.”

“Charlie!”

“Mrs. Kennison, please, you must stay calm during a critique, Mr. Unner has his right to an opinion. Mr. Arden, something to add?”

“Yes Mrs. Fiordine, I believe what we actually have here, is a brilliant piece, something so wise, so grand, that it goes beyond second, third, forth glance, it transgresses the boundaries of scholastic worth. It is an insurmountable achievement.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Unner, I know you’d like to make another comment, but we simply have too many pieces left to go. Time just won’t allow for it. Please, take your seat Mrs. Kennison.”

Marching casually, soaking up complimentary looks like *** and candy, the anointed artist holds high, perched on her plateaued vanity. Contemplate laying down a foot in the isle. Disrupt the whole parade. Good will holds me back; move on as the teacher gets things on track.

“Mrs. Enid, please, go forth and delight us with your work.”

The girl walks up, hunched, biting her lip raw. Tremors, pulse through her like shivers, sporadically giving her movement odd twinges. She stands, before her peers, terrified by their eyes, holding on the cusp of cruelty. She feels ugly. She looks ugly.

“I’m here, though vision may not allow for it. Take me in, wholehearted, in a look, in glance, just don’t glare. Don’t beat me down with your beady eyes, holding me accountable for your own lack of vision, believing my person, my appearance, to be some misfortune cast onto you. It’s my damnation. It’s my curse. I struggle with it; you just need to avert your eyes. Is that what I’ve become though, someone to look away from. If so, hold me accountable, **** me for my looks, scorn and belittle me, just glance my way, and don’t treat me like I’m not in the room.”

“Amanda, that was really great. A great poem. Now…questions comments. Yes, Mr. Arden?”

“Boo…go weep yourself to sleep, dreaming about what it’d be like to not look like a monster.”

“Charlie!”

“I’m sorry Mr. Fiordine, but her face, and the ugliness carried on it, that was all in her poem. I think that makes it fair game.”

“Any other comments…”

“Boo…”

“Please, stop, whoever did it. This is not the place for such cruelty.”

There it was, the teacher’s out. The avoidance of on property bullying, through the acknowledgment of not an end to the torment, but rather a delay, it was brilliant…in a cowardly sort of way.

“Amanda, you may take a seat…would anyone else like to share?”

Clumsy, her feet seem to stick together as she makes her way towards the desk in the back corner of the room, away from people, away from the windows, away from the light. The hierarchy notice, they’re weary of her positioning, fearful of the dreadful, inevitable fall from grace, a fall which would bring them to that place, the spot at the back of the room, where no one goes, and no one looks.
It sits there, at the back. No one knows whose there, whose listening. They just know the occupants aren’t wanted.
A young man stands before the class; he speaks from a page in a monotone voice, barely accentuating his alternating rhyming scheme.  There’s a stop, people screaming. A trail of blood pooled up in a low in the floor, it’s origins lie with Amanda, in that space at the back of the room, that place no one looked, no one wanted to go, that cold, dark, January.