Poem of the Day 02.14.23

seymour

i was new to the school
new to the suburbs

and i landed in this catholic school
where i couldn’t take my eyes
off of tara roddick.

tara had this
tall, blonde friend, linda jones,
who used to catch me staring

she’d make faces at me

or she’d get tara’s attention
and then i’d have two of them on me

mocking me during a spelling or math class

when valentine’s day came
our teacher made us decorate
kleenex boxes in red and pink and white

so that we could set them on our desks
as we all went around the classroom
dumping valentines in each other’s boxes

the teacher gave us cupcakes
and let us open our cards

tara never gave me one

linda did, however
and when i opened hers
it read

“knock, knock.”

“who’s there?”

“seymour.”

“seymour, who?”

“seymour reasons to like you all the time.”

except linda had scratched out “like”
substituting it with the word “hate”

truthfully i was surprised that linda
even cared that much at all

and when i finally looked up

i watched her and tara eating

their cupcakes and sharing each other’s valentines

they looked so innocent
i guess like little girls should

i took another glance at linda’s card
then i put my head down on my desk

wishing i were blind

just shot through the eyes

with a goddamned bow and arrow.


05.21.08