Troubled Times
It’s Suicide Prevention Week
so some of the kids have
hung posters around school
with glittery messages in
block letters- You Matter,
Tomorrow Will Be a Better Day,
You Are Powerful, You Are
Loved- that sort of thing.
Honestly, a lot of it blends
into the usual paper outreach
that screams for attention.
You know- Join Debate Club,
Don’t Drink and Drive, Picture
Day, Censorship Tears Us Apart.
I did notice that some group
of miscreants used a suicide
poster on the second floor
to host an informal poll:
Tits or Ass- Vote Here! Kids
are awful sometimes. Like this
TikTok challenge they’re doing,
ripping soap dispensers off
the walls in the restrooms.
Stuff like that. It seems so
senseless and destructive
until you remember how
trapped they are and how
helpless and angry they feel.
Covid has taken three years
off their childhoods. Days
they will never get back.
And then you notice that
next to where the soap
dispenser used to be, one
of the posters with the
perforated tabs that have
the suicide hotline number
is taped to the wall, just
below eye-level, and three
of the tabs are gone, like
a mouth full of broken teeth.
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