I remember you in the school
dinner room, choking on the
corned beef sandwiches that
the dinner ladies forced down
your throat; waste held no
relevance between those walls.
I remember you sat alone at break
times, hands and stones slapped
across your face like whiplashes,
for an injustice you were far from
capable of committing.
And you walked home, your head bowed,
through those orange bricked streets
that framed our morning walks, alongside
the neglected grass verges like miniature
jungles we never dared to enter.
Those doors opened once again, before
the sun set behind the grey roofs and dust
like trees, you stand and stare once more
in that hallway mirror that hangs rusted,
and only slightly cracked.
Jonathan Butcher is a poet based in Sheffield, England. He has had poetry appear in various print and online journals including Ink, Sweat and Tears, Elbow Room, Your One Phone Call, Mad Swirl, The Transnational and others. His second chapbook ‘Broken Slates’ was published by Flutter Press.
Foxglove Journal 