The Red Pen

Found it, dog-eared, in a bin of junk:

that same blue cover, where my hopes had sunk.

Mrs. Davison, with her tight, thin smile,

and lipstick, always just a little vile.

She said, 'Creative, is it?' Her voice like glass,

drawing her pen across my feeble class

of words, my little birds, my clumsy flight.

Each jagged line, a stab into the light.

'This isn't how,' she'd say, 'we write of sorrow.'

As if she owned the whole damn bleak tomorrow.

My first bright thought, turned crimson on the page.

I burned with shame, and then with quiet rage.

That fluorescent hum, the smell of chalk and fear.

My own true voice, I hushed it, made it disappear.

Just stuck with facts, the proper, duller way.

And sometimes now, I feel her hand, even today.