poem of the day 07.27.15

the cartoonist

renji sits in a chair in the back

drawing dinosaurs from a picture on a video screen

he’s a quiet and respectful kid

he spends more than enough time alone

in a sea of children who are always in each other’s shit

i generally like renji

but two days ago

he asked me one question too many

and i sort of blew my top

there was no excuse other than life getting to me

as it gets to everyone else at times

but since then renji stares at me like i’m the devil when i pass

he’s a decent cartoonist from what i can see

his dinosaur is a good facsimile of the one on the screen

i watch him thinking back to when all i cared about was drawing

superheroes and baseball stars

comic book rambo soldiers and mad magazine rip-offs

like renji i was a quiet and respectful kid

who spent more than enough time alone

it’s strange to suddenly become

confronted with yourself like that

like you never know when the past will pop up

thoughts of drawing lead to thoughts of my high school art teacher

who didn’t want me in his freshman visual arts class so badly

that when my pencil tip broke

he and i spent forty minutes walking my campus

until he found a nub thrown into some bushes

and made me use it for the rest of the week

adults have no conception of what they’re able to kill in a child

with the smallest of gestures

i’d like to think that i don’t have

that kind of effect on renji

it would be a shame for him to stop asking me questions

simply because i couldn’t handle my own business

i think i’d like to go over to him

and tell him how much i like his drawing

tell him what a fine cartoonist he’ll make one day

i think i’d like to be the adult in this scenario

but i wonder if it’s too late right now

to simply apologize.