It’s past the playground
On the other side of a hill
Atop which kids can look down
And jeer and snarl and clap
As noses explode and
Knees launch up into groans
And shirts are ripped
I go there now even
Though I am too old
And tall enough to cast
A shadow for miles
And I close one eye
So the kids will think I am
A Cyclops who moans and
Grunts instead of speaking
I go because there is often a
Kid who reminds me of me
When I was in middle school—
Round, red-cheeked, outnumbered
With his fists up just below his glasses
Showing infinitely more guts than
The cocky boy who had the crowd
On his side before he even lifted
His symphony-conductor hands
I usually just yell and moan and play
The monster until everyone runs away
And I’m left with the round lonely boy
Who was me just a few years ago
And I’ll tell him middle school
Doesn’t
Last
Forever
He doesn’t ever believe me
But I can tell he’s always glad
I stopped by
This one time I came too late
And the pretty, thin boy
Had the ugly, round
Boy on his back, pinned
Knees on elbows and
Pretty was slapping Ugly
Whose red tear-streaked cheeks
Made the crowd roar
And so I opened both eyes
Became me again
Ran down the hill
Picked up the pretty boy by the
Belt and collar and threw him
High into the air
So that he would know
What it feels like to fall
His head hit the ground first—hard
Enough for grass stains
On his cheek and nose
And I sat on his chest
And I slapped his face
And I told him that his days
Were numbered
And today was zero
I am the Bubblegum Reaper!
I am the Bubblegum Reaper!
I am the Bubblegum Reaper!
I am the Bubblegum Reaper!
I am the Bubblegum Reaper!
I said with each slap
And then I released him like
A fish you catch in polluted
Water and cannot eat
The young round boy stayed behind
When the rest left and he said,
“They’re gonna kill me tomorrow”
So I walked that kid home
And I talked to his mom
Who fed me dinner
And I told her she needed
To help
Or at least notice
I went to the old middle school
The next day after high school
And the round kid was looking scared
Again, surrounded by pretty boys
So I played the Cyclops once more
And they all ran, like pretty boys do
I taught the kid to close
One eye and moan
Like a monster
Whenever the pretty boys
Get too close
And now as he waves his arms
Over his head screaming
He is almost
A Cyclops too
But not quite yet
It’s okay because pretty boys
They don’t know
The
Difference
Most
Of
The
Time
And so
The boy can be a boy
A little bit longer
14
Shifted the Conversation Like a Knife Across My Throat
The soccer team kept winning games without me. Shannon kept running to the flag and crossing the ball, and other girls started to score, and soon the hateful glances I was receiving in the hallway turned into no glances at all. Maybe I was far enough away from the cage. Maybe they couldn’t whack me anymore.
Free from varsity-soccer-cult rules, I began sitting on an outdoor bench during lunch periods to read Alex’s poetry or The Bubblegum Reaper, because we were trying to determine once and for all if Wrigley had fallen for Stella or Lena and were certain that there must be a clue we were missing.
Alex had written a poem called “So I Played the Cyclops,” which thrilled and scared me simultaneously. When he gave me a traced copy, he said it was based on an experience he had “not so long ago,” when he started hanging around his old middle school, looking for lonely kids who needed help. He did this because he used to fantasize about someone coming to help him when he was being picked on in middle school. He also did it to be like his hero, Wrigley.
The poem made me think about the high school boys who used to come to my middle school with bottles of peach schnapps, looking to bribe younger girls into giving them head. Alex was the opposite of those boys at the center of our middle school sex scandal. I loved him for that. But the rage that was so evident in his poetry was a little frightening, too. I didn’t want to date a Cyclops.
“Did you really throw some eighth grader through the air?” I asked him after I had read the poem. We were parked in a field with the Jeep’s top down, looking up at a hunter’s moon glowing like an enormous flaming pumpkin just over the distant trees. Alex wanted me to listen to a song called “Midnight Surprise” by Lightspeed Champion in the open fall air. It was a really cool song. Weird in a good way. And almost ten minutes long. After it was over, I told him I enjoyed the experience, and we talked about the lyrics at length. Then I said, “Did you really slap the pretty boy in your poem? You must have been twice his size.”
“So was Wrigley when he held that kid underwater. The kid who was spinning Unproductive Ted. Remember?”
“Yeah, but that was just a fictional story.”
“No, it wasn’t. Wake up, princess,” he said, referencing “Midnight Surprise.”
“You think Booker really did that? You think he actually almost drowned a little kid?”
“Sometimes you have to fight against it,” Alex said. “If you don’t fight against it, you lose yourself.”