Baila

17

Summer School
She is crouched in the dark
Against a wall scratched with pencil marks
Knees pulled to her chin
Strewn papers radiating out
From her feet
The floor full of them
Silver spirals glinting like barbed wire
Jagged edges of crumpled homework
Textbooks open, pages glowing whitely.
EXIT glows red like a clock
Time’s up–
–school’s over–
–it’s summertime–
–time to go home.
But she had to come
Just once more.
She clicks her phone to life
And nearly calls him
Then lets it die back to blackness.
“Where are you?” he would say
“Are you in school again?”
“Why do you go there?”
“We finally graduated, for chrissakes!”
“I don’t understand you.”
But she doesn’t need his questions
She would say the answer anyway
Just to hear the truth of it.
She whispers the words
Alone
To the darkness of chairs and desks
Concealed in locked classrooms.
“This year has been hell.
But when I come here…”
Her voice fades,
Echoes against the abandoned shapes
That puncture the emptiness.
Her secret place.
She is remembering
The first time she came
Walking, late at night,
Praying for the door to open
Stepping through its reassuring creak
Upstairs to the English classroom
She buried her head at a desk
In the center of the room
Until the shaking sobs left her
Calmed by the gentle hum
Of the vending machine.
“When I come here,
All the noise leaves my head
And I can finally breathe
I love seeing this mysterious,
Inverted version of school
With all the lights off
I love that I know this place better
Than anyone else,
Better
Than I know myself
And I know myself
Because of this place.
You gave me silence
You gave me a home
When I had nowhere to go.”
She lifts her head
To the gray outline
Of the muted fluorescent lights.
And in the darkness
It seems that they
Listen.
“Thank you.”
Warm air envelopes her
As she walks away from school
Into summer vacation
For the last time.