The Day the Country Died
November 22, 1963
three pm e.s.t
fifth grade
pa speaker clicks on
“today, at one pm c.s.t
President Kennedy shot
he is dead”
our young substitute teacher
gasps then starts to cry
we are silent
school is dismissed early
buses home, no one speaks
our country has changed
I was still writing ARITHMETIC at the top of my papers
When I discovered everyone else had written math.
I said to my twin “they are writing MATH!”
My twin turned her page around and it said MATH.
I was horrified! Why had no one shared this abbreviation with me?
We were in fifth grade, so this was the same time I lost my club.
I had formed a little “Boy haters club” with four other girls.
Weird since everyone knows girls do not play well in odd numbers.
There is always someone left out, and it is usually me.
We used to meet on the playground during recess.
I had a yellow cigar box with our meeting notes.
The other girls went to the side of the enemy pretty quickly.
Soon it was just me and the cigar box
and a notebook full of why I hated these traitors.
They are raging with excitement; one is twerking. I ignore it.
Their voices are increasing in volume now, it is the weekend.
Enthusiasm keeps their spirits high; they are thrilled it is Friday.
Higher and higher their voices sing the joyful Friday afternoon song.
So many sounds from twenty-four excited fifth-graders.
Borderline shrieking; it is amazing to hear. I watch, thinking.
Future novelists are silent, organizing books in their heads.
Future screenwriters and poets are creating scenes in their minds.
The busiest ones are not the loudest and proudest.
They are not the ones twerking and shrieking.
They are the ones listening silently,
Studying and learning what human nature looks like.
We leave the fifth grade reunion, go to another school
to a place that's much calmer
No more tag or hide and seek or
gathering in a circle to play Duck Duck Goose.
No more random stories,
from rolling the story cubes.
No more hanging out together as friends.
After all the years of being with each other,
we are forced to be separated, never to be seen again.
Just me. Disappointed me.
My life becomes shattered broken glass.
It's like a knife cut through my heart.
Missing my friends throughout the summer,
was difficult,
it was like a challenge to overcome,
after the last day of school.
It was so hard to say goodbye to our school
and our loving friends.
It was heartbreaking to say,
farewell fifth grade,
farewell elementary school.
One thing remains from those cherished times.
Memories and keepsakes from my childish crimes.
I will never forget the sweetest girl.
She was my friend, my love, my world.
How funny it was to play and run
Through the water in the midsummer sun.
She was taken in a violent event.
A shotgun now rings in torment.
That is all I have to say
Any more and I will fade
I will remember more of her living
Instead of her death and time forgiving.
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