I WENT BACK TO SCHOOL on Thursday. My last semester of high school. I felt far away. A little empty. A little numb. I felt like crying. But I knew I wasn’t going to cry. Mr. Blocker asked me how I was doing. I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“I’m going to say something stupid. It will get better over time.”
“I guess so.”
“I’m going to stop talking now.”
He made me smile.
The students seemed to flood into the classroom.
Susie and Gina walked up to me as I sat at my desk. They both kissed me on the cheek.
“Nice,” Chuy yelled from the back of the room.
Mr. Blocker shook his head and smiled.
“For the next three weeks we’re going to take a crack at poetry.”
There were groans.
“It gets better,” he said. “You’re going to have the opportunity to write a poem.”
It was good to be back at school. I was going to make an attempt—at getting back to normal.
I don’t remember what went on in class.
I honestly don’t remember anything about that day—except for listening to Cassandra’s voice as she gave Susie and Gina a lecture on her theories about male privilege. And I remember saying, “Stop! My balls are shrinking.”
I felt that I was living in the land of the dead. But I knew that I had to return to the land of the living—that’s where I belonged.
My father was dead. But I wasn’t.