My 2017 West Roxbury Library contest poem

Here is my entry to the 2017 West Roxbury Library poetry contest.  The theme this year was Alone/Together. 

 Kyle

by

Nina Kallen

I.

It is 1977.

It is the midwest.

It is seventh grade.

There is no anti-bullying program.

Teachers believe that intervening will only make matters worse.

I walk the halls in fear.

Home is no better.

I get excruciating headaches that make me throw up.

I don’t know why it was Kyle in my dream.

He was a mean boy, but not the meanest.

He would join in

when others called me spesh

Or stepped on the back of my shoes,

But he never started anything himself.

In my dream there is a dance in the school gym.

The bleachers are crowded.

Kyle and I are to be hanged.

The nooses are around our necks.

Then we are dangling but not dead.

We look over at each other and I understand.

We are the same.

He is as powerless as I am.

In that moment, in my dream, in my life,

I stop hating. 

II.

It is 2017.

It is the United States of America.

I have not been a child for a long time now.

It seems that the world has devolved into good versus evil.

Stories of denied refugees and the dying uninsured make my eyes well with tears.

I march!  I write checks!

The view from the moral high ground is excitement all around.   

When I think of the other side I think of Kyle in science class,

Sitting with his friends in the row behind me,

Ranking losers and rating sluts.

I understand that decades can change a person. 

Life, and dreams, bring unexpected compassion,

While compromises eat away at good intentions.

Googling reveals a dead man,

Same name, same town,

But not him.

I doubt he is a customs agent,

Thrilled to be allowed finally to terrorize random strangers.

Probably not a neo-Nazi,

Or an active hater of any sort.

But does he sit in his living room,

Drinking beer and watching the game with friends,

Nodding along at racial slurs while he reaches for the chips?

Or, maybe in his dream,

He took the noose off his head.

Maybe then  he turned to me,

And took my noose off mine. 

Maybe he and I are still the same,

Fighting free from our entanglements.