One Friendly Smile

One Friendly Smile

He sits on the swing, head dipped,
ashamed of something he can’t control
He holds his broken glasses in his dirt-stained hands,
thinking that being half-blind has to be better than this.

Shoving them in his pocket, he shuffles toward the door,
content to wait till the class is inside before he follows.
He shoots a fiery glare across the room at the boy
with the fists, the boy who makes his life a living hell.

And without a sound, he mouths, “someday,
you're gonna get it, you'll see.”  But for now,
he lays his head on his crossed arms and rests
as he dreams of retribution, and buries a sob.

Years later, in a television interview, students agree,
“He was a loner, but we never thought he could do that."
His mother, in her disbelief, imagined she could see her baby,
cradling his twisted glasses, crying “why don’t they like me.”

And now it was her turn to be ashamed of something
she could not control.  She only hoped that someone, somewhere,
remembered that day in the playground, and could finally see
how their actions tumbled into the future, how one friendly smile,

one invitation to play, one neglected impulse to strike or belittle,
could have changed history, saved lives, saved her baby.




SWPoet

May we treat violence, at any age, seriously and not stand perplexed after the fact, wondering why we didn't see it coming.