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Posts Tagged ‘bully’

In the Wing Dedicated to Heartbreaks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 13, 2026| 12 Comments »


after reading “The Reassembly” by Isabella Nesheiwat
 
 
In the museum of the chest, I find
on a dusty back shelf my old favorite lunch box
with Hollie Hobbie’s picture raised
on one metal side, her big blue
bonnet covering all of her face.
The box is dented from where Donny,
a grade older, kicked it that day
when I walked the shortcut home from school.
He told me Holly Hobbie was for babies.
I arrived home feeling dented, broken, too,
embarrassed to be myself.
I run my fingers over the cool silver latch
and open the lunch box again.
Empty now except for the old story
I told myself about my unworthiness.
Instead of listening to the story,
I listen to the emptiness. Hear my heart
beating true in my blood warm chest.
The heart says, What is infinite in you
survives all brokenness.
I write these words in the dust
on the shelf beside the box.
The museum curator doesn’t chastise me.
She smiles at what I wrote. She nods.

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Building the World We Believe In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2026| 10 Comments »


 
 
I haven’t given up on humans yet.
Though here in America where masked agents
pull women and men from their homes–
people who build our communities, our country–
we are so far from the goodness I imagine.
In second grade, I remember making forts
at recess with small snow balls we’d
squeeze in our hands. So carefully,
so gently, we would place them, one on top
of another to create a small home.
And then, maybe every time, when
the recess bell rang, a group of boys
would linger and at the last moment
they would kick our snow walls down.
It is in all of us, the bully, the one
who enjoys destruction, the one who
wants to feel powerful, strong.
But it is also in us all to speak out
for each other, to stand up for each other,
to say no, this is not okay. It is in us all of us
to gather the way we did in second grade
with our small mittened hands, going out
the next recess, and the next, and the next,
to build together again. Because we can.

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Thinking Those Three Hoodlums Could Use a Good Dose of Nevermore

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

Those boys who jumped you at the dance—

I want the chance

to find them now

and ask them how

they feel about themselves as men.

But then again,

perhaps it would

feel twice as good

to sit them in a row and read

them poems, see

them squirm to Poe—

then let them go.

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