Spoon River Middle School: 34

Joe Britekote

Note found crumpled on floor by a desk

That new kid, that Brian kid, he better watch out.  If he thinks he can just come in here, can just come in here and push kids around and mess around with girls like Jennifer, well, he better watch out, ’cause—           [note torn off here—John Stratford]

Tisha Blacque

Free Writing: Poetry Assignment (You made us do this)

Friends come and go.

Mostly, when you make a big change,

they go.

Maybe they think

(if they think at all)

that you changed

because you don’t want to be like them anymore,

and …

if you don’t want to be like them,

well … maybe …

but …

that doesn’t mean you don’t like them anymore.

Whatever.

So at lunch today

there was no chair for me,

not at the table where I sat all last year.

and when I walked over there,

no one even looked up.

So I just found another table,

an empty one,

that soon filled up

with people like me …

with people like the new me …

or

who at least looked like

the new me.

When I thought about it later

(and I do think about stuff),

I smiled

because the whole thing

reminded me of birds at a feeder

and of that old saying

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

Emily Booker did a report on that saying last year.

I remember it

(if you listen to her

you can learn stuff,

but most people don’t

listen

or learn),

and she said that “birds” saying goes clear back

to the seventeenth century.

back to the good old days,

when good old religious people

called women witches

and burned them.