School Floor

The scent hit first,

a waxy, sour breath,

like old institutional death

or maybe just a kind of tired cleanliness.

The floor stretched out,

squares of muted green and beige,

like a faded comic book page.

Pitted here, scraped there,

where chair legs dragged,

where small shoes snagged.

The high-traffic lanes

gleamed with a dull sheen,

reflecting the fluorescent haze,

a hundred thousand school days.

I saw the scuff marks,

the faint, ingrained dirt,

the places where some kid had hurt

their knee, scraped it hard.

A map of small falls,

of forgotten games,

of whispered names.

And the smell again,

seeped into the walls,

into the very bones

of the building,

a memory you could taste,

like grit on the tongue,

a song half-sung.