Origin of a Drug Addict
Mr. Bloom’s candy store:
oak shelves
glass barrel jars
creaking floor slats
stray cats
nickel bars with names like
Hollywood
Pay Day
Zagnut
Holy Communion:
Necco Wafers and Grape Crush
Violet squares
in silver foil,
dissolve into lilac
toilet water
on the tongue.
Bubble Gum cigarettes
fake smoke
to feel glamorous
sexy,
skinny,
blonde and blue-eyed,
in our everything but
bodies
before
returning
to the blare
of our mispronounced names
by teachers who hated
our guts
drilling multiplication tables
into us
with chain gang precision.
Cringing all through grade school.
More damage than whiplash.
Penny candies in brown sacks
self-medication:
the nervous kids
the slow kids
the no speak English kids
the vitamin deficient lethargic kids
the cold water hurts in winter kids
the mattress on the floor kids
the paste eating kids
the ask too many questions kids
the comemoco kids
the slurring, stuttering, lisping kids
the polio and scoliosis kids
the too many last names kids
the Brillo head kids
the buck-toothed kids
the bad breath kids
the sandals in winter kids
the abacus not chalk kids
the yarmulke kids
the huele a bacalao kids
the church on Wednesdays kids
the write on their arms with ink kids
the finger through the fly kids
the your mama’s on welfare kids
the carve penises into their desks kids
the rice sandwich for lunch kids
all ended up in the retard class.
Trust me, I know.
Sugar Babies deformed
in anxiety’s sweaty pocket
milk money pennies hidden in socks
pressing Lincoln
deep into their heels
until they can no longer stand straight,
stand tall
pushed back down
to color inside the lines
of alphabet clowns
and shapes with respectable names
Retards dream of Mr. Bloom’s
candy jars. Little brown bags
rattle sweet relief.
Last row, last seat, kid
top of his head
is all the teacher sees kid,
eyebrows arch in threat
behind her National Enquirer.
Ruler snaps,
dust falls from the flag
clock’s evil grin
holds at 2:45.
Little brown bag
airplane glue kid,
his face
Evening in Paris blue.
© Magdalena Gomez. Reprinted by permission in Centro Voices on 11 April 2015.
