You are the only beating heart in the building
with darkness seeping in from the windows
where you looked out and watched friends run on a blacktop playground where
a girl fell on you and smashed your tooth against tar
The red glow of the exit sign gives
A little light to guide your feet to the back corner of the building
Where there is a maze of rooms with wooden desks
Decorated with rainbow gum underneath
A ghost of a building
marks on the wall
where you wrote hate letters
to the nuns who flicked chalk at you
You are on the second floor
no way to escape the empty classrooms
where teachers bored you to death
and the hope of leaving clung to window screens as
the wind carried in the budding flowers
only to be masked by the mold, brick, and ironed skirts
You turn and descend stairs
To the jail cellar that was your cafeteria
Where complaints bounced off walls and unopened ears
The room to the right where dentists chairs
Were temporarily set up to torture students
With drills, wax, and spit,
You walk down the hallway to enter the twelve stall bathroom
Where your friends dared you to stand in the dark and
Whisper the words “Bloody Mary” to a mirror
That reflected your unsmiling face.