Thanks to you, streetlamp, I see the yellows and reds of autumn.
On my way to school, the halls are quiet
But for the buckling, cracking of stairs under my feet
Fifteen, twenty-five steps from my bedroom,
The classroom.
I hover over Wednesdays like a spirit, doomed to forget
And remember that I’ve forgotten.
I won’t see human skin in vivid detail until Monday,
And even then,
The numbers on the door have shifted by one or two.
G216 is in the basement with the drowned snails,
Piled on top of one another like pebbles.
To mistake shells for stones,
Students for passive vessels of germ and disease.
The clock, paused since March, ticks again,
Rewinding to account for lost time and operating at double speed.
But the tiles have been rearranged while I spent those months blinking,
Blinking,
My eyelids growing soggy and cancerous,
Bulging down onto my hollow cheeks.
It won’t be long till I shrink small enough to slide my legs under my dresser and find that the wall behind gives way;
I slide, slick with soap, suds trailing me,
Down the right side of the hallway.
I imagine the school will be demolished one day, its few
Wooden furnishings returned to the earth.
I will come to see it off, watch the dust settle,
The cemetery above casting ashes down on its remains.