TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2

Everything we’re learning is supposed to matter

But with every class I sit through

trying to stare at the board and not

the inside of my head

it feels like a map to a land that doesn’t exist.

Mrs. Fisher tries to make us see the shape of numbers

and the way formulas are like the world

but my world looks so different than the sterile

textbook examples.

Mr. Hudson lectures about history but ends up

talking about his divorce most days

tells us to go to law school so we don’t get

screwed in the proceedings.

Mr. Mattson teaches physics and out of everything

this feels the most like something I can focus on

until he gets into gravity and I become hyper-

aware of the earth sucking me down

into the ground.

Only Ms. Gladstone’s class feels like a refuge

because at least the worlds in the books she assigns

feel like me:

real and not.

People in pain

and telling

their story.