9/30 2014

She sits in the back,
hoody up, headphones dangling
like empty promises from her
neckline.  A constant low growl
plays from the forgotten buds,
a quiet snarl, a small warning.

She speaks only when spoken to,
her responses staccato and rushed
as if the words are afraid of being
found out. Her nervous eyes don't
trust anything long enough to rest
for more than a moment. She's
always looking for a way out -
the emergency exit, an open window,
the crack under the door.

A lonely magician,
she only knows how to disappear
into herself. Her body is a poor
sanctuary, though - the hinges are
all broken and the walls never
could hold back the wind.

So she sits and hides behind her book
the book she always, always has
the grimoire, black
and scarred with a thousand
names written and scratched out,
written and scratched out, they are
the runes that protect what is inside.
She opens it at a tilt, careful not to
spill whatever spells abide there;
careful to smooth a page when the
magic gets wrinkled.

Shes works on invocation
while the class discusses
nonsense with words that
sound like bricks and mortar
her lips move silent,
desperately conjuring spirits to whisk
her away, spirits to upend this desk,
the spirits of pry bars and demolition hammers 
and when they don't come,

when the spirits stay bound in
those pages, as they always, always do.

She smiles tight lipped,
writes a new name on the front of her book
slides the buds back into her ears
and escapes - her tread silent as ghosts -
the bell ringing just as the door
clicks shut at her heels,
the sound is a broken spell,
the class is a cobbled wall.