In History/Civics we had a vote
On the bill of rights
The question was
Do you think people should be allowed
to have guns in public?
And in civics class when you hold a vote
The east wall of the room is NO
And the west wall with all the cabinets is YES
There was a scramble
A rush of bodies brushing
A rush of bodies moving
In the wrong direction
I ran to the east
Everybody else ran
West
I paused
There must be a mistake
I was the only person standing on the east
I looked to my left
I looked to my right
No one
I barely had any friends in that class
Just shy timid Amara
And a handful of boys who didn't think letting
a girl
Hang out or talk wasn't
Manly
But there was no mistake
When I looked forward I saw
20 pubescent bodies pressed together
And Amara
Poor Amara too shy too timid to say no
When everyone else said
Yes
I guess because no one else
Was threatened
Waiting for their ice cream
At a Dairy Queen
By a man yelling he would shoot all of us
In the head
I felt that thing
Slightly off centered in my chest
And my heart beating fast
The calm before the storm
The panic before the attack
Because everybody was looking at
Me
But the storm never came
The attack never happened
Because I heard a snicker
Jack
Typical Iowa teen
Cowboy mother fucker
Redneck
Racist
Trump supporter
Xenophobic
Anti-feminist
Farmer
Homophobic
And he turned his head to hide his face
To whisper
About me
Behind that disgusting mullet of his
But his whisper wasn't quiet because
His snickering turned into laugher
That raised his voice loud enough
For me to hear him "whisper"
Liberal
Another snicker
Leftest
And another
Biden lover
He turned back
Checking silently to see
If I heard him
Because he was too much of a pussy
To man up and say that to my face
But he looked at me just long enough
So I could flip him off
A silent fuck you
The teacher told Jack that we would not
Be allowed to talk about modern politics
But he pretended not to see me and gave me
A wink
When we left class
Fuck You Jack🖕
YOU ARE READING
Here I'll shout
PoetryIt's hard for me to speak to here I'll shout In poems About being 14 sucks Especially in a pandemic With trauma And a genetic predisposition to mental illness And a strong urge to kick your ass And I'm not the only one so sharing my story will h...
