What I Learned in Public School Burned Stars into My Skin
By JUSTIN KARCHER
If you carve into my body
& pluck out my organs
like a game of Operation
you will find each organ
tattooed
with three simple words:
Buffalo Public Schools
like a stamp of approval
or disapproval
depending on who you talk to
I’m a byproduct of a system
that the world had given up on
at least it felt that way
in 8th grade
my history teacher once wrote
“World War 4”
on the chalkboard
it was an accident
when the hell did World War 3 happen?
was it during my lifetime?
anyway, I became obsessed
with thinking that there’s always
a great war happening
it just might not involve militaries
or machinery
rather sneaky wars creeping
into your skin & never leaving
& you’ll die
never knowing what killed you
I was a morbid kid
& vowed I would be killed
by smoke & drink
the devil you know, right?
my history teacher
lived across the street from me
in a big apartment building
full of drug dealers
& addicts that would go in
but would never come out
she had no curtains
& was fond of walking around naked
with the lights on
I would often see her hitting the bottle
then I would be blinded
by the eclipse of her body
it shined a light
on my puberty
& I’m probably still grasping that
she had a husband
who was never there
but when he was
they would always fight
it’s no wonder
she wrote the wrong war
on the chalkboard
she was living a different one
every night
I felt weird
learning about the pipeline
between my legs
while all this chaos
was happening
it’s no wonder
I associate intimacy
with wanting to help
a celestial body
just out of reach
that astronomy is unhealthy
but it has stuck with me
the stars that get lost
in the shuffle
the stars that get clogged
in pipes
there’s still brightness
you just gotta map all the darkness first