Points of Friction

The plastic chairs are too small for my hips.

I sit among the ghosts of high school

while the clock on the wall skips

a beat, breaking every unspoken rule.

Then someone stands to grind a lead,

a high-pitched scream of metal teeth

that tears through the silence overhead

and wakes the anxiety underneath.

A pile of cedar shavings and gray dust

sits in a clear plastic cup,

the remains of a point we no longer trust

to hold the weight when we wake up.