working on poems with my 9th graders, and just finished a poetry unit with my 10th graders, we've moved onto a Jason Reynolds book and i am finding the rhythm of back in the building, in a new system (quarters) where I must work hard to build relationships and pack content into 9 weeks. it's challenging, and i appreciate challenge, but this year it almost seems like too much to do anything more than teach my classes. the work life balance has shifted since COVID, and i want to be more present at home, especially as winter melts into spring (maybe sometime, right now we're covered under a fresh 6 inches). by the time i get home from work, i have used all of my patience. i feel anxious. i want a clean, quiet space to help with my anxiety, and my home is the opposite. i don't know when i will ever get used to a maladjustment of my spirit, but i do know that titles change things. we wear the mask in our buildings, and we read dunbar, angelou's riff of dunbar and deonte osayande as we asked ourselves which masks we wear. here's the mask i wear:
i have become
used to wearing
the villain mask.
I, terrorist of the
living room kingdom.
i am tired of the mess:
your worst storms,
amplified by years of
desert island isolation.
i am under a spell
of exhaustion.
tempered and tan-toned,
i have become
exactly what i said
i wouldn't.
i don't know how to unsee
the mountains, how to let
the molehills slide,
how to stay quiet like breath
when you thunder-rumble.
i am tired of asking,
and getting silence
in return. you are tired
of talking, and i am a griot.
i turn off myself
like a light switch.
taking rest and searching
for what i need in
wild dreams of turquoise
water on our skin.
i have to be the hero
of my own life, even
if i'm always the villain
of yours.
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