We Gulp Down Minutes and Hours as If There Will Always be Seconds

I sat in French class gazing up at beautiful words

meaningless to me

sailing softly over my head

the teacher told me and another philistine

to leave the class

to find another

we walked down the corridor

sniggering the shame away

 

he knocked on the door of another classroom

and was gone

I walked on

out of the school and sat in the shade of a hundred-year-old tree

I did that every day for a year

I was never missed

I did not learn French but I saw how insects run to sunrays

I discovered music and heartbeats in creaks and swishes

I watched old crisp packets become playthings for the wind

I saw my physics teacher hiding in his car

sucking on a whiskey bottle

we caught eyes once

and nodded

and forgot about each other

I did not learn French

 

I run my fingers along the braille of your skin

searching for meaning

for an original thought

for something new

for anything

but there is nothing

this sentence has been written before

 

so has this one