How I Grew Up And Learned That Violence Is Not Always The Answer

The year I started middle school

every girl's hair was red.

Not the crayon-box punk I tried in later years,

but blow-dried strawberry blonde

and god! they were beautiful, all those girls

with dry hair and ironed edges

in the cold glass atrium

of a brand-new school.

Isabel of the clear green eyes

hated me with hate as pure

as her complexion.

Her notes in crisp round purple passed

around me and behind me till

I grabbed one just to break her web

and still she smiled;

so I beat her lipstick-pink smile

into the lipstick-pink carpet.

Isabel's mother came from work

in a dove-gray suit, with a black briefcase,

to speak with principal and guidance counselor

and me.

I was not worth the black button

sewed to the inside of that suit

in case of needed repair.

My tears blotched my cheeks and my shirt and my homework

and I thought about slitting my wrists

with my new pink safety razor;

but three weeks later Isabel's lipstick

was ground back into the carpet.

It took till eighth grade to notice

that Isabel was winning

and another full quarter to realize

that her three brothers (whose drivers' licenses

saved all her diamond clothes from schoolbus jostling)

were not blind to

girls without strawberry hair.

One educational night-- pale hands

shaped my face,

ridged backseat upholstery

stamped my shoulders--

one night in her family SUV

and her clear green eyes slid sideways

and her purple notes only mentioned the Gap

so I was free.

Three years later I left the district, with its cold

glass and its crisp pink girls,

and then I was more free. I've not been back. But god!

Isabel was beautiful.

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