Forgot My Valium

A fist in my gut, my eyes fly open twenty seconds before the deafening

meep meep of the black box with glowing eyes can announce the inevitable and I will stagger into the cold air and madly arrange my split-ends hair to look like I meant it to be like that but everyone knows different but I can’t care about that since the big yellow beetle is droning down the street and I can’t miss it because Daddy would be late for work and hate me in the evening unless I get on now and sit in the smelly vinyl bench next to the smudgy dripping window that rattles like teeth and reminds me I forgot to do my math homework so I’d better run away since I can’t do anything right except sit like a frightened squirrel with my split ends and hope I’m the smartest when papers are passed out that smell like the hot ink I can feel spreading in my guts until its over and my hands reek of grape eraser and sweat that I’ll wipe off on my baggy pants that’ll bunch up again when I wedge myself back into the yellow beetle and ride pins and needles home until I’m back between my seedy sheets again.

Meep meep.