teachers put pens to paper, simply,
hands of children,
to write their way towards healing,
to find love,
to process hope.
I walked upon a green bathroom
in Binghamton
when a trigger was pulled...
a kid, a daughter,
a girl at school
bringing the credits to her story.
At the top of the stairs,
a security guard and I
ran to the shot,
I was told,
stay in the hall.
I didn't listen, followed,
saw the red splattering of sadness
splashed upon sinks, floor, and mirror.
A week later, teachers put on leave
for allowing teens to write about their friend,
this child, this daughter,
this girl.
Writing sorrow, they were told,
inappropriate for school,
"Let them heal on their own."
That memory, a wound in my heart,
prompted today by Janelle, Erika,
while thinking about words, a catharsis,
& how many police them,
keep them from paper,
as if life doesn't exist.
That's what I wrote in a notebook yesterday, once prompted by author Erika L. Sánchez and teacher Janelle Quintans Bence in a recording of #TheWriteTime, not knowing that the writer was also a prolific poet, with an incredible resume of writing excellence (Definitely click the link to check out her talents).
"Immigrant children don't learn what their parents went through," she said during the interview, and it Julia didn't see her parents as human, as real, until she went back with them to Mexico. I wish children were taught to cultivate, rather than destroy," she said while talking to Janelle.
The book, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, a National Book Award finalist, was the latest YA novel featured in our series. And it was a heavy day, difficult to discuss words, achievements, teaching, and hope, when all of us were watching hopelessness cascade in our news feeds, televisions, and lives. Perhaps this is why their question resonated with me - Write about a time when writing was cathartic...healing. I remembered the suicide of that young woman, its impact on the school, and the awful way administrators handled it (I seriously think there's a class in administration land on how to lead like a douchebag - it must be mandatory). After the recording, I went on an Erika Sánchez reading binge and this poem resonated with me...thinking about that young woman at a Binghamton High School that I didn't know, but happened to meet through chance.
Six Months after Contemplating Suicide
Admit it —
you wanted the end
with a serpentine
greed. How to negotiate
that strangling
mist, the fibrous
whisper?
To cease to exist
and to die
are two different things entirely.
But you knew this,
didn’t you?
Some days you knelt on coins
in those yellow hours.
You lit a flame
to your shadow
and ate
scorpions with your naked fingers.
So touched by the sadness of hair
in a dirty sink.
The malevolent smell
of soap.
When instead of swallowing a fistful
of white pills,
you decided to shower,
the palm trees
nodded in agreement,
a choir
of crickets singing
behind your swollen eyes.
The masked bird
turned to you
with a shred of paper hanging
from its beak.
At dusk,
hair wet and fragrant,
you cupped a goat’s face
and kissed
his trembling horns.
The ghost?
It fell prostrate,
passed through you
like a swift
and generous storm.
I am so blessed to do the work that I do. And yes, Janelle...Erika...writing heals. It's a way out.
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