Emergency: What I'm Reading Now Yaya

I don't read. I don't. I skim I chew and I cry sweat on the lines in the pages that swim together. I don't read. I don't. Yaya. One book says 'remember this' and the other book says 'I see you.'

That's what the janitor with the heavy jaw line and the wooden hands said when I'd walk down the hallway way after the kids leave for home and their sweaty palm prints have dried on the desks, and I break my back on the industrial xerox machine when the jam happens; after quitting time.

"I see you," he'd say in a sing-song voice. Sun sets in the classroom where the windows won't let blinds cover them up.

"I see you." He leans back so the bend in the hallway can't keep us apart. I stand at my classroom door, wanting to escape back into that place but he has the key so why do I think scurrying from and to is any big thing? Again and again. He saw me again and again. The wheels on his trash can squeaked and his trousers were the same level of cleanliness every single day and he didn't let the booze get to him though Mr. Mallory, the Algebra teacher, told me he'd have every reason to let it get to him because he went to Vietnam and that's what we all know about being there; he's like your fatherunclebestfriendsgodfathercousinneighbor and "Why wouldn't you donate to his retirement party?" my mentor teacher colleague says, and shakes her head. Just sign the card. Why indeed? Her retirement followed close on his heels; it took the new teacher so many months to clean out the accumulated subtley. A love of other people like janitors who have been through so much.

"Happy 30th birthday, Miss Emergency!" He grabs my arm and I'm over the damned wheeled trashbin now and his jaw is the exact level of stubble it is every day and he is kissing me and there is no one here despite the reputation that everyone else here at this National Blue Ribbon school maintains; that we all work so hard and we are always here and there are always caring involved people to clean up after your stupid brats.

Not invisible. Not hacked on, in and beside. Seen. Touched. Not invisible. Read like words to slobber over, to grab and squeeze and this is why I don't read when I am so distracting.