Pep Band Blood

We find ourselves Here again
where the creaking, cracking sounds remind us
of laughter - Middle School Laughter.
Something almost mean about it.
The squeak of sneakers on shiny reflections,
whistles and shot clock buzzers like angry murder
and cages
and that Smell.
Not quite a new notebook.
Not quite salisbury steak farts.
A green, fading & curling.
A confidence well-worn but still scratchy.

They play the same songs at
basketball games - Professional, even - where they let
the blood of Pep Bands trickle down the pyramid steps,
praying it will enrich the waxed soil below
at least as much as the Shit-Talk
and that creaking, cracking laughter.
Bouncing down corridors that don't go anywhere and
penetrating the corners we should be making out in,
but usually end up vomiting all over.
That laughter snaps like
text spines
or old doors
or thin, dead wood.
or whatever we choose to consider a portal.
Like wet dreams
or cancer cells.
Through those same empty hallways
after the Bell.

We find ourselves Here again and
drunk as I may be,
I know these stairwells like the back of my goddamn hand.


...
that was the first thing i wrote after a long quiet period back in 2008. i didn't care for it much at the time, but it's grown on me. it was also the first in a series of single-page, once-a-day-ers. it may be responsible for my newfound discipline regarding my writing.
-andy