Good Reason to Cry

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She couldn't get the spelling done,
and there'll be hell to pay when she gets home.
She tried; the letters started dancing on the whiteboard
and distracted her, and then the time was gone.
She's crying, halfway out the door as if
just standing there will make the punishment in store
diminish into vapor, disappear as she has prayed
so often that he would. The bell will ring and she
will have to leave, the stupid teacher
thinking she's just misbehaving yet again,
the bullies teasing, hissing "baby" as they pass her
in their hurry to board buses that will take them to their
happy homes where daddies tuck their children in at night
and mommies still cook dinner. When the man gets home
and looks inside her bookbag, sees the note, he'll hurt
her like he always does when she is bad, and she'll be sore
down there again, and Momma will not care. She needs
the man too much, says he gives her things she has to have,
the medicine so she won't get the shakes that no one's
s'posed to know about at school. Whiner, she will say,
go to your room, is this the thanks I get for finding you
a better place to stay? She hopes that Momma doesn't know
what he will do when she has passed out later. Stupid letters
on the board. If they would just stay still, she'd write them
down on time. She wouldn't cry. No one would call her
baby, stupid teachers telling her to just calm down, already,
you're in second grade, you shouldn't get upset like this.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014


I subbed the other day and saw a little girl sobbing, right before dismissal. Another student volunteered that the girl hadn't gotten her work done. It seemed an overreaction, but we don't know what consequences she faced. I hope it wasn't what I wrote about here. But it happens.