Slide

Part of the email, "Restorative Justice," sent to Mr. Maron on Sept 13, 2022, 4:03 pm:

The first time the principal fucked me, he got mad afterward, and sharply asked, "Where's the blood?" I never had told him all that had happened to me. I had just answered yes when he asked me if my father had molested me, which was when he first took me under his wing, so to speak. I was not anywhere near ready back then, to put into actual words what had occurred throughout my childhood. But I wrote a poem a few hours after he asked that question. I was remembering a slide on a playground when I was 5, a spiral one, as I wrote this. I wrote it in red pen. I never shared it with anyone until I was in my 40's. Here it is:

Slide

by

 Judy S. Lentz

Drop away beneath me in

breath snatching glee

Is the laughter beating in my ears

from me?

The mirrored slope descending

Sheets of silver floating down

Invisible windfingers lift my hair

the breath of a clown

Whose hand trails behind me, streaking

blood where I slid down