WRITINGS FROM THE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH
Home LAUREN DAVENPORT “Something in the Way”—Nirvana Today’s Headlines There Was a lot of Blood Texas, I mean. I was in NYC. In my own classroom. Teaching Lady Macbeth. She would not let anything get in her way. She was cold-hearted, cutthroat. She was ambitious. CEO material. It must have been infuriating to be held back by her time. The kids giggled when she said, “Unsex me now.” If you are figuring out why you have breasts, it’s a funny line. We could all do with a little less gender and a little more magic. This was what I was thinking at 3:09. I grabbed my phone to scan the Times headlines; there was a lot of blood. At 5:52 a.m. That Morning I saw a red cardinal in the park as I walked my dog. It announced itself, bold, not to be missed, an influencer, an extrovert. It was 9/11 weather. Gorgeous, sweet air, calm skies, whimsical clouds. A kindergarten sketch of a sky. 9/11 weather is eerie in its foreboding perfection. Crisp skies to raining ash. I see it when I blink still. The cardinal was more than I could handle before coffee. Did I Say I Love You? I checked my phone to see if I’d texted my daughter and my son this morning. I leave before they wake up. I smell them before I go. She smells like lavender and vinegar and he smells like tar and citrus. I send them headlines from papers that they don’t read just as my mother used to mail me newspaper articles which I ignored. I send them texts about their homework, dentist appointments. I send them memes which they say are stupid. When I try to use a trendy word, they say, “Mom, eww, cringe. You are the worst.” I reply, “The worst? The actual worst? So Hitler was better?” They say, “You are such an English teacher.” I say, “accurate.” I made myself a promise to end my texts with “I love you” because that should always be the last thing they hear from me. In real life they say “yeah, we know, we know, you love us” before I can get the words out, but they can’t stop my texts. Mwa ha ha. It is my love power and it is fierce.
SUMMER 2022 | 53
