dropping out.

[inspired by Marge Piercy’s ‘Breaking Out’]


My first big mistake ? Seeing
A pair of doors that usually stood shut
As open; As a doorway
To actually going somewhere.

Row upon row of desks stood there
For storing things I never thought I’d use-
Blank pages, and written, and pens, for writing my own;
An upright gasbag who deflated in a drone,
And sighed, as weary of homework as was I,
Who could’ve sworn- I mean, it was unlikely as Hell-

The home I came from, one where daily
Men went out to bring home food and hope
In regular portions- something smaller, but sooner
To fill the pot than what I was doing.
So when I heard, in whispers, of Marx, it was
Brother I thought of, equal and yet unequal
To every boy there that was seventeen-and-some.

In the corner always stood the rule
For walking the straight and narrow, the scale
That measured in bright red marks how far I’d get.
But it held no terror of its own, no threat
Worse than the nagging fear, in my stomach,
That there’d be nothing left to weigh, or only that
With no scale such to weigh it by.

When I was fourteen, after a day
Of groaning stomach and grinding teeth
And more pages left blank than there ought to have been,
I snapped. Emptied my desk,
And followed those before me out into the world.

Touching those sheets later, I could scarce believe
That I’d thought they’d save me, somehow,
‘Unlikely as Hell’, but possible; But I proved weaker
Than the rod of which I’d never been afraid.