Red Ink

The medical form asks for a signature and date.

I find myself leaning hard into the ballpoint pen,

slanting the 'M' with that old, apologetic weight

I learned in a room that smelled of chalk and men.

He called my handwriting a 'scrawl of the weak'

and circled my letters until the paper bled red.

I can still see the floor wax, polished and sleek,

and hear the precise, cruel things that he said.

I’m forty years out from that drafty, dark hall,

yet I still check the margins for a hidden ghost.

Some people teach you how to stand tall;

others just teach you what you’ve already lost.