This lad waits back at the end
of class, says he has things to say,
things for my ears only.

They call him ‘only half there’,
whisper about the other half
behind his back, about him shitting

himself last year, in maths. About
how he stinks, which is true,
only I’m not allowed to say so.

He sits on the edge of the desk.
‘Can you keep a secret,’ he says.
I tell him I can guarantee

nothing, which is always a good
way out. He nods. He’ll tell me
anyway, whether I like it or not.

It’s about a girl, he says, about
a girl he’s been seeing (no longer
do they ‘go out’ as we used to) –

about the things she’s been saying
about him, to her friends, calling him
‘shit-boy’ and making noises.

You know the sort of noises, he says.
Not very nice noises. They make me feel funny.
I shake my head and tell him I’m sorry.

He looks at me as if there is
nothing more than this moment,
these girls, their insults.

I leave him sat on the edge of
the desk, looking at his feet;
a lemming contemplating freefall.


Original confessional:

The boy who wasn’t there

I was the boy who wasn’t there.
There were parts on show; my face,
the clothes I wore, my skinny
fingers writing finger marks in air.
My mousy hair. But most was not
a place that you could go.

I was an ugly boy. My eyes
said nothing – no truth, no lies,
my mouth seldom opened, and
when it did all you could see were
these ratty teeth, this thin pink tongue,
the deep recesses of my blank beneath.

I’d come to class and sit
at the front, and look at you
as if to say: ‘Teach me something
I’ll never know. Tell me how
it works, this place. Give me
something to hang on to.’

You taught, I listened, we were
groping our way towards each other,
but without words we were lost.
The most you could do was smile
at me, talk in one direction,
imagine my distance.