phobia

it wasn't much of a poem, "phobia." started with a set of sloppy, labored, rhyming couplets-

"as i sit in the cold cruel night
my thoughts and emotions marred with fright
this house a dungeon crude and crass
is like some huge engulfing mass"

yes, it does go on. and on. and the metaphors become more clunky. but i was in eigth grade. whaddaya want? auden, for christsakes? um, er.. sorry. back to the story at hand.

i took the poem up to mrs. whitesides.

"there's no grade on this. why?"

she levelled her permy head me way-

"i believe a student could write a poem of this calibur. just not you."

i misheard her, thought she said that no student could write a poem of this calibur. it made me feel kinda proud. really? no student my age could write a poem of this calibur? i must be really good.

no, no, no, it was me that she didn't believe in. me. the poem wasn't that amazing. i was that worthless.

the thought was so blindisiding, i couldn't even properly defend myself.

in elementary school, i was known as the smart girl. the good girl. teachers felt badly for me because my mom never made it to parent teacher's conferences. they looked after me, got me into a gifted program, gave me lunch money.

my first year of junior high was at a downtown hollywood school, thousands of kids. if you weren't packing a blade or smoking crack in class, you were considered an ace student.

but this was small town utah. and i never noticed, until that moment, how much i spelled like pot smoke, cigarette smoke, and the musky equine of the horse stalls i cleaned every morning before school. i'd been too busy not drowning to notice that the other girls had pretty, clean, hair and matching clothes. they wore fresh, light makeup.

'i did write it." i said lamely.

"okay, fine" she slashed a "D" across the top in red marker. "whatever you say."

it makes me sad to think how floppy and misbegotten i must have appeared then. the type of kid grown ups don't believe in.

it makes me sad that there is a type of kid grown ups don't believe in.