“Fuck him. He doesn’t do laundry anyway, you can tell. I bet his hair reeks too. He probably doesn’t shower. Fucking loser.” But her insults, while appreciated, were insignificant to the reassurance I got from just knowing I was better than him. And the good feelings I got thinking about pushing him down the stairs and watching his teeth shatter against the tile floor. Josephine didn’t understand that. I showed her my poem and explained to her that it was about him, and she laughed, but she didn’t get it.
Josephine and I were good friends by that winter, and I liked her very much. School was pretty tolerable. I was surprised. Things had gotten better with the assholes. They’d still jeer and make fun of me from time to time, but it didn’t seem as often as the year before. Maybe it was because I was with Josephine a lot, and they didn’t see me as such an easy target. Maybe they had just finally gotten sick of picking on someone who didn’t respond, unlike some of their other targets. And Brandi had a boyfriend. That couple was truly a stain on the school, but at least she was distracted with her new project and left me pretty much alone.
Writing became very good therapy for me, but I still had to deal with assholes. Ms. Voree, for example, developed a problem with the work I submitted as part of our “creative writing” assignments. I’d submit really fucking good poems, and she’d hand them back, scrawled on with red marker.
Rachel, this is well written,
but I’d like to see some lighter subject matter.
Rachel, you’re a happy girl!
I’d like to see some of that in your writing!
Rachel, you are very talented.
Please explore different subjects as your talent grows.
Well, it wasn’t my fault that she didn’t like my stuff. She couldn’t argue that it wasn’t good writing, though, so she had to give me good marks, but I didn’t appreciate that she was critical of what made me passionate.
So I submitted a poem that I wrote with Ms. Voree in mind.
Lady in your proper dress,
Telling me my brain’s a mess.
Listen now and I’ll grade you
For judging me on speaking truths.
You fail at smarts,
You fail just fine.
You’ll fail at living
When I snap your spine.
I didn’t think Ms. Voree would take it so personally. In retrospect, I can see that she would obviously apply it to herself, but at the time, I was pretty wound up and I was writing some good stuff and I figured I was clever enough to get away with ironically giving her a poem about herself. When she returned the poem to me, the red marker ordered See me after school.
And when I went to her classroom at the end of that school day, not only was she sitting there, but the principal of the school, Ms. Coates, was there too. I had never had a run-in with Ms. Coates before, and Ms. Voree looked pretty upset. I knew I was in for it.
“Rachel, please sit down,” Ms. Coates said, gesturing to a desk. As I did, my mind raced with ways to get myself out of trouble. “Ms. Voree, please explain the problem once again, now that Rachel has joined us.”
Ms. Voree wouldn’t look at me. “Rachel is a talented writer, and she has been very consistent this year, handing in great poems for our creative writing unit. But I have become dismayed by her choice of subject matter.” She gestured to a short pile of papers on the desk beside Ms. Coates, presumably my poems. “As you can see, the subject matter worsened throughout the semester, leaning more and more towards violent imagery.”
Ms. Coates interjected. “Yes. Rachel, would you agree?”
“Yes,” I said, hoping I looked attentive and concerned.
“Please go on, Ms. Voree.”
My teacher cleared her throat. “In my comments on her work, I have suggested multiple times that she explore different themes and feelings in her writing. I’ve encouraged her to expand. I really believe she is the best writer in her class, but the drawback is always the imagery she chooses to write about.”
“Having read the poems, I can see that,” Ms. Coates agreed. “Please go on.”