Triggered

four of us teachers were talking
we rarely have time to do that  
we never even use the teachers lounge  
too busy making copies and calling parents  
  
two of the teachers were male  
both admitted their students have seen them cry this year  
mine haven't    
amazing  
i'm a huge effing crybaby  
but i've chosen anger instead  
it's closer to the surface  
a quicker-burning fuel  
it doesn't make me feel as deeply  
   
resultingly  
"I'M NOT GOING TO YELL!"  
is something i yell  
a little too often  
   
one of the occupational hazards of teaching  
for me anyway  
is childrens literature and movies  
the way the frames briefly freeze in Toy Story  
dragging out the characters emotions?  
can't watch it  
   
do not even get me started  
on the movie Sounder  
   
but yeah, books  
   
one day when substituting  
years ago  
the teacher left a Martin Luther King book   
it was illustrated in deep, rich burgundy  
yellows, golds, and browns  
claustrophobic suffocating colors  
necessitating prescription-strength pink  
and seafoam green  
after just looking at it  
   
when i had to read it aloud  
my voice shook  
   
today what triggered me  
was a resource i printed  
for the substitute i'm having tomrrow  
on an extremely rare day off  
   
the sixth grade curriculum  
calls for me to teach the Black Death  
the great plague of the middle ages  
Covid on steroids  
   
the resource is an article and question set  
good, cheerful font  
just the right length   
   
but then i looked at the illustration on the front  
   
a sweet little boy  
with a rat biting his ankle  
another rat hanging off his arm  
a huge black rainbow of a frown  
panic in his eyes  
   
i suppose it's meant to have a vaguely playful grossout factor  
"Eww, he's covered in rats!"  
an 11 year old might think  
but that's not what I saw  
   
I saw every child who has ever suffered  
so fucking unfairly  
in this poorly thought out world  
   
Seriously!  
   
if anyone else made as many mistakes in their job-  
if their design and supervision were as flawed and negligent  
as the mystery man's upstairs  
they would be fired  
   
but who fires god?  
   
maybe i should just get an inverted bob haircut  
and ask to speak to the manager  
   
i left work around 6:30 PM  
trying to regain my composure  
after I'd burst into not just tears  
but sobs  
over a printed article  
for sixth graders  
though likely exacerbated by the fact  
that I'd come unglued after a student's giant water bottle  
spilled all over his papers (I'd asked him to keep it on the floor)  
and I had to spend the rest of the afternoon  
knowing i'd made a kid feel like shit  
   
driving home    
I wonder how I'm going to live with the crushing sadness  
and realize  
i perfer the quick-buring fuel of anger-  
   
but it's not honest