I never said I'd be a scholar

by shira


The rain dripping from my desk drawer
Comes from an apple core
Bit it in half
Cut it in slices
Left to dry inside a beat-up box

A pile of dust under the night-light
Come on, illuminate my schoolbooks
Has been dug up
But not blown away
By a woman searching for her buried love

The tears spill from the skin
Ripped and wrinkled by a knife
To pool in a puddle
Below my pens and pencils

I’ll write about the woman's man
With my sticky felt-tipped pen
My fingers are soon yellow
From a forbidden fruit

The desk drawer isn't bad
If you want to be forgotten
If you want to live
Between erasers and the scissors

If you're in a scholar’s life
You’re wrong, and better off
Dripping until dry
Invisible and cut in two,
Than to linger, lust, and leak
Hoping someone will write about you