let me sing to you in high school
Author's Note: The following poem was published in the 2007/issue 33 edition of The Sun, a Pacific Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDs) anthology of creative writing and art.




Let me sing to you in high school
In halls that know no boundaries,
In bathroom stalls that know no doors
In classrooms where desks are hung
From ceiling rafters, with parting words of
'I loved him but he didn't'.

In tattered detention rooms
With 'Why'd you do it?' or first of all,
'Why are you here?'
--On cafeteria tables,
Smudged with memories, life
And salad dressing

Allow me to serenade you
In the locker room,
Where in the girls' it smells
Like cheap flowers; overdone wishes
And in the boys',
Two dollars' worth of Axe

I shall sing to you in high school
For no chance I have in college,
Where you will end up miles away
From my voice, my words, my undone
String of wishes

Let me sing to you in high school
Over homework you try to finish
In the bathroom before the last bell,
While I slip you the answers
Under the door

And under teacher's desks
Where grades lie above you with
Their menacing stares
And threatening silences
And thrumming voices

You shall stay silent as I hum
In the room where music is
But even if the band room,
Orchestra room,
Choir practise hall is full,
We'll steal a room
And make it ours

Let me sing to you in high school
Four years of useless adjectives that
Do not, in the end, say all you wanted
To say about higher education

I have nothing to say about higher education.

I had things to say in high school that
I cannot say anymore, due to
Time restraints and
Placement problems and
Miles apart between us that
Shouldn't be there, but are,
And laugh at me silently through
Route numbers and faded yellow lines.

So let me sing to you in high school
On the bus that we took at 6:50
That brought us to school at 7
So that for a half hour it was us
Hiding behind lockers,
Whispering nothing between us
Except festering glances.

Let me sing to you in high school
About dances I wanted to hold you in,
And desks I wanted to kiss you on,
And about history we could make
That we could never learn in the class.

Let me sing to you
In halls that knew not our names
But our student ID numbers
And our lips
Which never met
But always touched




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