a saint in every dream

I've been sleeping for the last 9 nights in a row. Amazing. not just a little either. I'm talking an average of 6 hours each time of mostly uninterrupted sleep.
I didn't use medication or anything. I just went to bed and fell asleep; as I imagine most normal people do. and it's good.

On the other hand, my work life has been a bit insane. Everyone is freaking out about if they have a job or not next year. This is a normal thing to freak out about but personally, i just don't see the point. Most of the people who are worried are pretty awful at their jobs and I say, good riddance if they are gone after this year. I love my kids and i'm good at my job, so I don't see the point in worrying about that.
besides, there's plenty of other more important things to worry about. like my kids for example...

K and T are siblings. I teach both of them in different classes. On friday, I noticed K was a bit out of sorts in class, and I asked why T hadn't been in class earlier in the day. He mumbled something and put his head down... Later he approached me, as I stood teaching, with a scribbled note telling me he didn't want to get mad and get in trouble so he was gonna go sit in the hall for a bit. These kids often lack the words and language for how they are feeling so I let it be... i went to check on K after awhile and he confided his home had been broken into at 3am and that his mom and sister were pistol whipped and "hurt", as was his father and uncle. he was roughed up a bit, but mostly just forced to watch... the ultimate shame.

i didn't really let that settle into me... I just let the words hang there in the air for a few more moments. i didn't want to take them in. They could have killed him, but they wanted to hurt him, and they did that through his family. I knew there was much more there than i wanted to know... and i just didn't want my mind working to figure out all that he hadn't told me. I wanted to blot it out, and I did.

I just started asking questions, trying to keep him talking and trying to help him find the words to match the emotions he was feeling... he wanted to go home and get his gun and handle the people who did this to him, the people who shamed him and his whole family. He knows who they are, but he won't snitch. The moral code of the hood: snitches are bitches, and he's no bitch. If something needs handling, you do it yourself, not by hiding behind the po-po, or the law. he's talks a big game about retribution, but part of him is scared- scared cause he's not that kind of kid. not really. he's a big kid and he looks all hardcore thug, and plays the role often for his friends, but deep down he's got a heart of gold and he isn't lost... yet.

I asked him to sit in my room for the day, just to process his thoughts and not get all caught up in the anger. I knew his friends would get him worked up and only add fuel to the fire already burning inside him. I stood there looking at him trying to process his life and the situations that have lead to him being who he is. I kept remembering how the day before in class we listened to and deciphered the lyrics to "I'm So Hood". We discussed the song at length and k kept quoting "You can't even blame me, it's what the hood made me"-- Our debate in class was about an individuals responsibility for their own actions. Through every novel and poem on the curriculum the kids were adamant that they are all still individuals and responsible for their own choices and actions. But with this song, and not the ultra white conservative curriculum, things were different. They had a whole new outlook. The hood could change you, it could make you turn into someone who had no moral guage, and society was to blame for that... They couldn't see this song as a piece of literature that provided insight into a culture and time period- instead it was their safety, their anthem, and definitely not literary...

I worked hard to keep the rest of what he said from entering my mind when his sister, T, approached. She was beaten badly, her face swollen and bruised, with fresh stitches on her head and face. It hurt to see her. She said she had just been released from the hospital and wanted to get some work so she didn't fall behind. i told her the work didn't matter, she should be at home, resting... She said she didn't want to be there cause she was nervous about the test results from the rape kit coming back; she just wanted to move on. I acted unaffected by this statement, following her casual lead. K got up and walked the hall not wanting to hear the words that followed. Her eyes filled with tears as she described the terror of the men busting through the door and tieing her up, then shooting at her younger sister (and thankfully missing, twice). Then she told me about the man who sodomized their father and uncle with a gun while she was tied up, then the 4 men who gang-raped their mother while holding a gun to her head. hitting her with it when she cried...

then, when they were done with her mom, they each had their turn with her--

she told me how she closed her eyes to forget and make it all go away.

I wanted to fall over. The words kept hitting me and whirling around in my head. I couldn't look at her without seeing the pain and fear she had just endured.

and she came to school hours after this incident so she wouldn't fall behind. WTF
and what about him, K? men broke in to shame his family, to take the power from K who is running the block and making more money than anyone else... the business he inherited from the men in his family... They wanted more power, so they busted in roughed him up and took it from his family and him. Animals. I can't lecture him for the life he leads, and besides that the kid has enough guilt weighing him down after this incident. he doesn't need to be lectured, he needs to be shown another way...

and all of this, this perspective of MINE, what it felt like for ME, is nothing compared to what it was for them. This is their life and this happened to them, and they're picking their heads up and moving right along. going through the motions, continuing the oppression- the example that has been set forth is that no one cares, they know it, they feel it and they accept it. I'm still trying to process how the fuck this shit goes on- and better yet, WHY- - and they are moving forward as they are expected to do.

so, as i was saying, there are more important things than worrying about bev p's fucking budget and if i'll have a job next year... i'm worried about my kids and everything else just doesn't seem as important.

What do you tell a kid who has just experienced all of this.... how do you support them? They both were in school today, seemingly unphased & untouched, but something in them has been forever altered and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

that kind of history puts a saint in every dream.

they ask about my religion...

I sit underneath
a dirty fluorescent light,
that hums with a vibrato
I can feel in my throat,
speechless.

I'd like to tell them
I saw Darwin and Jesus
sitting at the bar
arguing about
what the meaning of life should be
until they got drunk
and went home,
together,
to work on creation.

I'd like to tell them
it doesn't matter
because we will all die
in hope of peace
broken in pieces...
because most wars are fought
over religion.

I'd like to tell them
we'll die
under the heat of the moon
and the pall of the coffin
will be our midnight sky,
that our sins will remain unwashed;
that there's a beauty in
revealing to ourselves and the seas
that we have been unclean.

I'd like to tell them
there's strength
in knowing that you alone
are responsible for your life,
no one to blame
or pray to
and that forgiveness
isn't always granted.

It would be easier to tell them
about my lord and savior

except I don't have one
or want one.