Teacher please
don’t call on me
to give an answer
to a question
about a topic
I’m not actually
paying attention to.
My hand is down.
My gaze, nonspecific.
My expression
carefully composed
to appear
thoughtful,
angelic,
and invisible.
Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by
Sarah Grace Tuttle this week.
We can’t stop laughing,
no matter how we try.
everything’s hilarious
and who knows why?
We’ve got to get more serious,
my belly hurts, you guys—
adults are getting mad at us
and who knows why?
This happens every day or two,
we laugh until we cry.
something strikes our funnybones
and who knows why?
Over the summer I grew a lot,
acquired a raging haircut
and the glasses I got
make me feel like a new kid
going back to school
wearing elevated kickers
and an earring too,
And I feel like I'm changing
and I'm feeling like it's good,
like I'm ready for the world,
like I really really could
be a whole new person,
be whoever I may be—
and I like it that I’m someone
who is so uniquely me.
Change happens, btw—
Squads of girls in my school are already reveling in it,
gaggles of gigglers, enthusiastic whisperers:
lip-glossers, hair-tossers, short-shorters,
personal-product carriers.
Bra straps peeking from loose blouses
are eliciting ill-at-ease eyeballs.
Change happens, lol—
Rodeos of boys have begun dropping their voices
like cowboy poets roving crowded hallways:
Growth-spurters, arm-grapplers, loud-laughers,
endless-appetiters.
Barely-mustachers wearing locker-room deodorant
keep tripping over their own big sneakers.
Change happens, ngl—
Now my body is werewolfing without permission,
full-mooning me into some acne-browed stranger:
mood-changer, friendship-shifter, gender-noticer,
secret-keeper.
Feels like I’m morphing into that quirky peripheral character
inhabiting every middle school novel.
