The Poet X – WINNER OF THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019. Элизабет Асеведо
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Day of School
As I lie in bed,
thinking of this new school year,
I feel myself
stretching my skin apart.
Even with my Amazon frame,
I feel too small for all that’s inside me.
I want to break myself open
like an egg smacked hard against an edge.
Teachers always say
that each school year is a new start:
but even before this day
I think I’ve been beginning.
Thursday, September 6
My high school is one of those old-school structures
from the Great Depression days, or something.
Kids come from all five boroughs, and most of us bus or train,
although since it’s my zone school, I can walk to it on a nice day.
Chisholm H.S. sits wide and squat, taking up half a block,
redbrick and fenced-in courtyard with ball hoops and benches.
It’s not like Twin’s fancy genius school: glass, and futuristic.
This is the typical hood school, and not too long ago
it was considered one of the worst in the city:
gang fights in the morning and drug deals in the classroom.
It’s not like that anymore, but one thing I know for sure
is that reputations last longer than the time it takes to make them.
So I walk through metal detectors, and turn my pockets out,
and greet security guards by name, and am one of hundreds
who every day are sifted like flour through the doors.
And I keep my head down, and I cause no waves.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, this place is a place,
neither safe nor unsafe, just a means, just a way to get closer
to escape.
Is not what I expected.
Everyone talks about her
like she’s super strict
and always assigning
the toughest homework.
So I expected someone older,
a buttoned-up, floppy-haired,
suit-wearing teacher,
with glasses sliding down her nose.
Ms. Galiano is young, has on bright colors,
and wears her hair naturally curly.
She’s also little—like, for real petite—
but carries herself big, know what I mean?
Like she’s used to shouldering her way
through any assumptions made about her.
Today, I have her first-period English,
and after an hour and fifteen minutes of icebreakers,
where we learn one another’s names
(Ms. Galiano pronounces mine right on the first try),
she gives us our first assignment:
“Write about the most impactful day of your life.”
And although it’s the first week of school,
and teachers always fake the funk the first week,
I have a feeling Ms. Galiano
actually wants to know my answer.
Rough Draft of Assignment 1—Write about the most impactful day of your life.
The day my period came, in fifth grade, was just that,
the ending of a childhood sentence.
The next phrase starting in all CAPS.
No one had explained what to do.
I’d heard older girls talk about “that time of the month”
but never what someone was supposed to use.
Mami was still at work when I got home from school and went
to pee, only to see my panties smudged in blood. I pushed Twin off
the computer and Googled “Blood down there.”
Then I snuck money from where Mami hides it beneath the pans,
bought tampons that I shoved into my body
the way I’d seen Father Sean cork the sacramental wine.
It was almost summer. I was wearing shorts.
I put the tampon in wrong. It only stuck up halfway
and the blood smeared between my thighs.
When Mami came home I was crying.
I pointed at the instructions;
Mami put her hand out but didn’t take them.
Instead she backhanded me so quick she cut open my lip.
“Good girls don’t wear tampones.
Are you still a virgin? Are you having relations?”
I didn’t know how to answer her, I could only cry.
She shook her head and told me to skip church that day.
Threw away the box of tampons, saying they were for cueros.
That she would buy me pads. Said eleven was too young.
That she would pray on my behalf.
I didn’t understand what she was saying.
But I stopped crying. I licked at my split lip.
I prayed for the bleeding to stop.
Final Draft of Assignment 1 (What I Actually Turn In)
Xiomara Batista
Friday, September 7
Ms. Galiano
The Most Impactful Day of My Life, Final Draft
When I turned twelve my twin brother saved up enough lunch money to get me something fancy: a notebook for our birthday. (I got him some steel knuckles so he could defend himself, but he used them to conduct electricity for a science project instead. My brother’s a genius.)
The notebook wasn’t the regular marble kind most kids use. He bought it from the bookstore. The cover is made of leather, with a woman reaching to the sky etched on the outside, and a bunch of motivational quotes scattered like flower petals throughout the pages. My brother says I don’t talk enough so he hoped this notebook would give me a place to put my thoughts. Every now and then, I dress my thoughts in the clothing of a poem. Try to figure out if my world changes once I set down these words.
This